Kittens in Babylon
by Thrythlind
Summary: A short year or so after returning home from the Earth-Minbari War, Rally Vincent's deadliest enemy arrives to ask a favor.
1. Points of Departure

Rally Vincent's home was a treasure trove of firearms of all sorts, legal and illegal, and wired up with all manner of security devices to make it difficult to break in without tripping at least one.

There weren't any booby traps as such, or loud alarms to scare off intruders. In fact, most of the security devices produced the same effect when tripped.

They turned on a little red light in Rally Vincent's room at the side of her bed.

Rally Vincent herself was the house's most effective crime deterrent. At one time, Rally would have commented that the pyro mad bomber she lived with was worse, but that had been eight years ago. May had her own place now, occasionally shared with her boyfriend Ken.

Now, as the light came on, Rally's eyes snapped open and she reached for the gun under her pillow. A slugthrower as adverse the PPGs more popular in the last few decades.

Moving quietly as ever, Rally tipped through her house eyes and ears searching for signs of the intruder. It was in the kitchen that she heard the sounds of motion and breathing.

Setting against the wall, she listened carefully. She heard the creak of her chairs and the distinct breaths of at least two individuals who sounded almost like they were sleeping. A third, even and controlled breath punctuated the other two.

Her own breath held to a mere flutter to keep unheard, Rally stepped lightly into the kitchen, slipping her gun toward the back of the sitting intruder's head and called out.

"Lights."

The brown-haired, slender woman in front of her was easily recognizeable, and it was only spotting the child in the woman's arms, and a second sitting in the other table, that kept Rally from pulling the trigger instantly.

"Goldie," she said coldly.

"You haven't slowed down at all, Rally," the woman said, and Rally knew that she was smiling. "I didn't hear you coming at all."

"What the hell are you doing in my house," Rally wondered, keeping her gun out and watching for any twitch of movement from the woman in front of her.

The bounty hunter's eyes flicked to the two children briefly, wondering what part they had in whatever scheme Goldie had set up now. They were about the same age, she saw, with somewhat dark skin and brown hair. Two girls, about five years old, twins by the look.

"I've come with a request," Goldie said.

"Well you can stuff it," Rally responded firmly, not relaxing a bit. "All I want from you is to put the kid down while I call the cops to come pick you up."

"I'm sure," Goldie said, setting down the girl she held in her arms. "But I'd rather no one knew my children where ever in your home, Rally. Most certainly nobody in any government body as prone to leaks as the police."

"Your..." Rally blinked despite herself. "What?"

"Children, Rally," Goldie explained. "Given life from my womb. Incidentally, while we're speaking of children, I was so distressed when I heard about Misty. I had so hoped to eventually have a close relationship with her."

Rally growled, hand slipping back as she prepared to club the intruder over the head with her pistol butt.

In that moment, the little girl laid quietly in another chair already, Goldie twisted about, knocking the weapon from Rally's hand before pushing the younger woman back.

Caught off-guard as she was, Rally didn't let Goldie keep the advantage. She twisted as her gun was knocked away, and slammed her knee up into Goldie's stomach before rolling aside to retrieve her weapon. She came up on her knees with the weapon aimed dead center at Goldie's body.

The mob-boss was getting a bit old it seemed. Either that or she hadn't really been serious.

"I think you're even faster than you used to be, Rally," Goldie noted with a cough as she stood up. "Then, you're not thirty yet, are you."

Rally's eyes didn't move, but the question flickered in the back of her mind as she considered that the two children hadn't yet woken up.

"Don't mind the children," Goldie said. "I gave them something to keep them out of our hair. I'll provide the counteragent, of course, when we're finished with our negotiation."

Rally held back the bile in her throat as she stood up, gun at the ready and lips curling in a disgusted snarl.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want you to take custody of my children," Goldie said with a smile that contained no hint of concern or love. "They are...a project that I do not wish to see in danger at the moment."

"They're not a project," Rally noted. "They're children."

"You want to ask the question," Goldie said. "Don't you. Go on, I know its in there."

"Who's the father?" Rally asked.

"Ah, there it is," Goldie said with a small clap that provoked Rally into almost pulling her trigger. "Artificial insemination. I had a genetic sample on hand and I thought I might try and...see what the appeal was. I must say, the long term uses I've considered in the interim are very...interesting."

That bile rose in Rally's throat again.

"You're a sick and depraved psychopath, you realize that, don't you?" Rally asked.

"I tend to find its my most charming trait," Goldie said with a cold smile. "But it doesn't change my request. I want you to watch my children while I deal with an....issue."

"An issue?" Rally asked.

"There is some disagreement on the ownership of the project," Goldie said carefully. "Certain...organizations that...must be dealt with. I may be, as you say, a psychopath, but I'm hardly the only claw in a black and leather glove around here."

"You're having telepath issues," Rally said dangerously. "What's to say they don't crack open your skull and come right for me?"

"Crack open my..." Goldie smiled. "Rally, Rally, there are benefits to a deviant mental framework. One of the chief of which is that poking around in my skull is far more dangerous for the telepath involved than it is for me. As for you...you've survived me..."

This was said with a combined trace of admiration and frustration.

"I sincerely doubt that, after that, you'd have trouble with anything the Corps can send after you," Goldie noted. "Even if they do, eventually, think to look and see if you are indeed keeping the girls."

"So, the choice is this, my lovely girl," Goldie said. "You can protect my children while I take care of this...minor situation. Or you can let them remain in danger. After all, this really isn't about me and you. It's about a pair of innocent children and the fact that I would owe you a favor."

"Sounds more like you'd have a hook in me," Rally said.

"Perhaps," Goldie responded. "But are you willing to risk it?"

"And what makes you think I'll let you take any kid back after you let me get them away from you?" Rally asked.

"Really, my dear," Goldie said. "You speak as if you'd have a choice in the matter. After all, eventually, I will come for All of my girls."

A shiver worked down Rally's back as the woman spoke.

*****

That worry, at least, was put to rest the next day.

The two girls, Vivian and Shanti according to Goldie, were still asleep even after the counter-agent had been provided, but it was an even and natural sleep as far as Rally could tell. Rally was looking for cereal or anything else that could be fed to a five-year old when the news came on.

"An unknown band of assailants attacked the Psi Corps headquarters today," the reporter said. "Several high-ranking members of the Corps are rumored to have been injured in the attack."

"Fortunately," a Psi Corps representative was saying as bodies were wheeled out of the building behind him. "The extent of the fatalities has been exaggerated. We've determined that the attackers were operating under the influence of an extremely mind-altering substance which Earth Gov has been trying to eliminate for some time. Most likely, this was a more or less random attack by a gang of degenerates."

As Rally watched, a blanket fell off one of the bodies being carted away and she recognized the smooth, psychotic grin frozen permanently on the face of the woman revealed.

Quickly, she walked to her phone and dialed the first of several numbers.

"Becky," she said. "Can you come over to my house, please. I need to talk about something."

*****

"Any clue what she was here for?" an old man asked the short black-garbed figure in front of him.

"Not a clue," the man said with a shrug, his left hand clenched into a fist. "She managed to do whatever it is she came to do. Several files were wiped clean while her 'pets' kept us busy. And I suspect that anybody in the corps who had the information were among the ones killed."

"If only we could have taken her alive," the older man said. "We could be prying it out of her mind right now."

"Oh, I doubt that," Bester noted. "In the end, we had to settle for frying her synapses because she wasn't going down to weapons fire. No one could really hit her with anything. The telepaths that tried anything more subtle are...well, let's just say they're not feeling too happy at the moment. The woman was truly a grade A psychopath, hardly a human thought in the whole of her being."

"Well, most likely she felt we were a threat to her monoply on mind control," the older man said. "As to her minions, they were all operating under the influence of this...kerasine."

"And most of them as permanently bent or broken as anything we could do," the younger noted.

"We'll have to encourage stamping out the drug then," the older noted.

"After, of course," the other noted, left hand still clenched in a fist. "We find the formula, purely for investigative purposes, of course."

"Of course, Alfred," the older man said. "Of course."

******

"And you are?" the security officer asked as a woman in her mid-thirties walked up to the queue with two girls behind her.

"Rally Vincent," the woman said, handing over her passport.

The security guard looked up from her ID as she gave her name.

"Rally...the bounty hunter?" the man asked, obviously impressed.

"I only did that to pay the bills," Rally said, waving it off.

In the back of her mind she sighed. What was she doing on a space station? The only trade as a smith she could have here was on, yick, PPGs. Nobody wanted a slugthrower on a ship or a station. Too much chance of cracking the seal.

Which, of course, hadn't stopped her from putting some of her favorite pieces into luggage, for display purposes only of course.

So, given that she'd be stuck packing a cracker-jack pop gun while she lived here, just why had she decided to come here, of all places.

"Everything is so closed in," Shanti said behind her. "There's no space anywhere."

"There's space everywhere," Vivian returned with a smirk. "It's a space station."

Oh, right, kids she wanted to keep out Psi Corp sight.

Shanti wore her hair long and loose, the dark brown curls framing her pretty face. She wore a white blouse with a green jacket and a long green skirt.

Her sister, meanwhile, wore her hair short, cut just above the ears. Vivian wore jeans and a t-shirt that was fitting so tightly that Rally was planning on insisting it go in the trash as soon as they had a private moment. She was snapping some gum fairly loudly.

Their faces always struck Rally as familiar, and not because they looked much like Goldie, because that came more than their build than their other features. Rally was almost certain she knew whoever it was Goldie had gotten a "genetic sample" from, but she could never lay her finger on it. Meanwhile, she'd done what she could to keep either of the girls from getting a genetic test that might make them pop up on an alert somewhere.

"They say you k-," the security guard was saying as Rally loudly cleared her throat.

The woman moved her eyes toward the two fifteen year old girls behind her meaningfully.

"Oh, sorry," the man said, embarrassed. "I guess war stories aren't appropriate around kids."

"War stories?" Shanti said, suddenly interested. "You never told us you were in the war."

"Not appropriate, Shanti," Rally told the girl as she handed over Shanti's and Vivian's IDs.

"What brings you to Babylon 5?" the security officer asked.

"I'm trying to give the girls here a taste of interplanetary culture," Rally said. "Going to be staying for sometime. Setup business for a bit."

That and it was getting a bit...noisy in the colonies just now. Hopefully a diplomatic station like this would be a bit quieter. At least as long as she kept her head down from the inevitable politics.

Vivian, smacking her gum, watched as aliens passed through in the corridor beyond. Eyes flicking curiously at all the strange forms she saw.

"What kind of business?" the security guard asked cautiously as he looked down toward her ID again and noted a few lines underneath. "Investigator? Well, that'll be...entertaining for you."

Rally really didn't like the way that word came out of the man's mouth.

"Well, you're clear to go," the security guard said. "They should be delivering your luggage to your quarters shortly."

"Thanks," Rally said with a smile, shouldering her carry-on bag and waving to the two girls. "Let's go get something to eat."

"Is there a McDonald's?" Vivian asked as she followed the other

"Why did we have to move again?" Shanti asked. "I liked it on Proxima 3."

"Same as always, Kitten," Rally said, turning to look at her. "Business was bad."

"Not enough cheating husbands so we come to a place with less than half the population?" Vivian asked sarcastically, drawing a narrow eyed glare from her guardian.

*****

As the woman and the two girls with her walked through the gates into the station as a whole, Vivian paused and looked to the side as she noted a bag sitting off on its own near one of the other entry gates.

Still smacking her gum, she walked over to it, reached down and picked it up. Clearly, an image of a tall, bearded man in a distinguished suit standing next to a Minbari woman with, strangely enough, long black hair.

Vivian looked about, blinking, trying to find either the man or the woman she'd seen. She almost missed him.

He was clean-shaven and was wearing a military uniform, but it was definitely the same man. And he was also clearly looking for something.

That was weird, usually when she saw things after picking something up, it was what the owner looked like at the time. She didn't usually get much from the past.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw her sister and Rally on the other end of the chamber and quick-stepped over to the man as he looked around the various pieces of furniture in the waiting area.

"Here's your bag," she said, pulling out her gum as it lost flavor and throwing it in the trash-can nearby.

"Oh, thank you," the man said, turning toward her. "I was wondering where I'd left that. How'd you know it was mine?"

"I saw you," Vivian said, shrugging. "You know, I didn't think Minbari grew hair."

"What?" the military man said with a sudden laugh. "That's an odd thing to say."

"Yeah, Rally doesn't like it when I say odd things," Vivian said, rolling her eyes.

"I didn't say I didn't like it," the man said with a smile. "I just said it was odd. Who's Rally?"

"She's my foster mother," Vivian said, looking around the room for a bit. "I'm Vivian Vincent. You can call me Vivi."

"Well, I'm Captain John Sheridan," the man said with an obliging tone. "Pleased to meet you, Vivi."

Sheridan held out his hand to shake with her and Vivian hesitantly took it as she rolled her eyes at the man's somewhat overly cheerful tone of voice. She could almost hear the baby-speak forming in the back of his mind now.

"Vivi! What are you doing over here?" a voice demanded firmly, drawing the teenager's and the Captain's attention to the speaker.

Rally's mouth under her sunglasses had that hard, worried line that Sheridan had seen on parents many times before. He immediately acted to put her at ease, reaching out his hand toward her and smiling broadly.

"Captain John Sheridan," he said in a chipper and inviting tone. "I'm guessing you're Rally?"

He looked behind Rally to see another fifteen year old girl with the same tall and slender build and vaguely dusky skin that Vivian had.

"And I'm guessing you're her sister," he said.

"That's right, Rally Vincent," the woman said in a slightly careful tone that caught Sheridan's interest.

"And I'm Shanti," the sister in the rather more feminine attire said brightly. "We're new here."

"So am I, as a matter of fact," Sheridan said with a smile before turning again toward Vivian. "And thank you for finding my bag for me. But I need to be going, first day on the job. Pleasure meeting you, and if I see any minbari with hair, I'll remember to tell you about it."

"Thanks," Vivian said as she hunched her shoulders and looked toward Rally's suddenly rigid face.

"Quite an imagination she's got," Sheridan said, his curious mind sensing the possibility of another secret to collect.

"You have no idea," Rally said with a motherly shake of her head. "Say, you wouldn't know if there's a civilian firing range on board."

"Not yet I wouldn't," he said, recognizing the attempt to change the subject and distract him. "But I'll look into it. I think I see my welcoming committee."

"Thanks for that," Rally said, grabbing Vivian sharply but not tightly and quickly moving off with both girls.

As they were out of earshot of the very friendly new commanding officer, she bent down to whisper into the girl's ears.

"Don't talk to people about what you see when you hold things," she warned quietly. "It isn't safe."

Vivian nodded and grumbled. She wanted to ask if that's why they kept moving, because of things she saw or Shanti did, but, at the same time, she didn't want to confirm it.

*****

It wasn't the requested McDonalds, but Rally found the equivalent of a sidewalk cafe, and had a momentary nostalgic wish for a Chicago hot dog. Sitting down she tried to avoid looking at Shanti, who was currently bubbling over with curiosity, waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Rally eagerly hoped it would hold until they were somewhere more private than a public restaurant. The she really would rather not deal with the subject at all, hence the attempt at delay.

Eventually, Shanti couldn't hold herself in.

"Were you really in the Earth-Minbari War, Rally?" the girl asked, eyes wide.

"It's not something I like to talk about, Shanti," Rally said.

"But that was the biggest thing to happen in the last twenty years," Shanti protested. "Were you a fighter pilot?"

"No," Rally said, eyes looking up cautiously to see the reaction of the people nearby.

"She was probably infantry," Vivi said, wincing as Rally directed a glare her way that screamed the word "traitor."

"Of course," Shanti said, turning toward Vivi. "Rally taught us everything we know about..." she stopped and looked around as she realized what she'd been about to say. "Well, anyway, of course, I'll bet your were the best soldier of all."

"Shanti Vincent, this is not the place," Rally said firmly.

"Vincent," a voice behind the woman said. "The Stalking Cat?"

Rally's face turned grim as she turned around and looked to see what she knew was going to be a Minbari standing behind her. Indeed, she recognized the dark uniform of the Warrior caste almost instantly. Looking toward the twins again, she turned about to face the grim Minbari man glaring down at her.

"I don't like that name," she said in heavily accented Minbari.

"I thought you humans were proud of your reputations as murderers," the warrior said with a sarcastic drawl.

Rally glanced toward the girls again, who were watching the exchange of words with a rapt nervous expression.

"I'm not arguing about this," Rally said, turning back to face the girls and returning to English. "I'm going to go get us some drinks, all right?"

She started to stand up, but was shoved back down into her chair.

"This argument is over when I say it's over," the Minbari warrior snapped angrily, Rally rolling her eyes in irritation.

The Minbari confronting her was hardly the best she'd ever had to fight. She could tell by the way he was acting like a local schoolyard bully.

Her irritation, however, turned to concern as she saw what was coming next. Shanti had stood up furiously and moved forward toward the Minbari as Vivian also got to her feet.

"Don't you touch her!" Shanti shouted, moving forward.

Rally spun out of her chair to a standing position, pushing her shin into the back of the Minbari's knee and pulling him down with a grip on his shoulder before holding out a hand towards Shanti.

"Calm down," she instructed Shanti firmly, but without shouting. "Kitten. Calm...down."

"Sit down before you start something, Shanti," Vivi whispered insistantly, earning a pointing finger from Rally.

Shanti's face fumed for a moment before taking a deep breath and sitting down in a huff.

Watching her, one eye on the Minbari behind her, Rally nodded at Shanti encouragingly and smiled comfortingly.

"There's no problem, Shanti," she said, and then nodded toward Vivi as well, gesturing for the other girl to sit down.

"I could snap you like a twig, human," the Minbari behind her said.

Turning toward him, and waiting to frown until Shanti could no longer see her face, Rally looked up toward the minbari that stood nearly a foot higher than her.

"I know that," she said, switching again to the Minbari language. "Nowhere near as strong as you. So what? Not important."

Another Minbari came up to the scene, dressed in the bright robes of the religious caste came up to the two and spoke rapidly in Minbari such that Rally couldn't follow it. Eventually the fuming Minbari warrior turned on his heels and moved away.

The second Minbari turned toward the woman, a smile on his face that belied a sad look in his eyes.

"I apologize for the trouble," he said in English. "There are still many hard feelings especially in light of the appointment of a new commander to this station."

Rally thought back to the soldier that Vivian had helped earlier.

"Captain Sheridan," she said in realization. "Yeah, that would make things tense."

"Because Sheridan is the only human captain to defeat a Minbari cruiser?" Shanti asked.

Vivian groaned and shook her head at the question as the Minbari and Rally both looked rather uncomfortable for different reasons.

"Yes," the Minbari said. "That is the basic nature of the problem."

"I might have just made things worse," Rally said irritably, glaring out towards where the Warrior had vanished.

"I wouldn't worry..." the Minbari let the sound stretch out as he wait for a name.

"Rally Vincent," the ex-bounty hunter said.

There was a brief widening of the eyes as the man recognized the name.

"I see, yes," he said. "That might have, indeed, made things worse. Still, you seemed to handle things well enough. My name is Lennier."

"Would like to join us for lunch?" Rally asked. "A thanks for the help?"

Lennier glanced up at the name and menu of the mini restaurant they were talking at. The grimace on his face told of the numerous health issues that would develop from regular consumption of the so-called "fast food" served here.

"That's quite all right," he said. "I have duties to attend to."

He started to turn away after a brief bow and then paused, turning back to look at Rally.

"Your Minbari...could use some improvement," he said before a final bow and leaving.

*****

Rally looked over the quarters she and the girls had acquired and looked down at the rent quotes and took a deep breath. It was a very good thing that she had some hefty savings from her bounty hunting days. And the occasional bounty she took up in the course of work now.

Their larger pieces of luggage were in the center of the room, as security had told her. Not much of it, unfortunately, which came from having to move frequently on a budget. As of yet, she had the benefit that Psi-Corps didn't seem to know about the girls, so they weren't actively looking. Which meant

that she could move whenever Psi-Corps started getting more frequent in a colony and not attract interest.

"Well," she said. "Home sweet home. Girls, first thing first."

Vivian rolled her eyes as Rally moved to one trunk and opened it. As a licensed gun dealer, Rally was allowed to carry a substantial number of weapons, as long as they were civilian legal. Beyond that, she had a fair amount of experience in moving weapons undetected through casual scans. Not to mention that most security didn't bother to look for weapons hidden in a shipment of weapons.

Passing the weapons about, Vivian, Shanti and Rally quickly found places to secret a number of back up weapons. Most of the the weapons were set off to the side, charge packs seperate from the guns, and, again, as a legal gun dealer, there wasn't much suspicious about her have a trunk full of weaponry. If a few were missing from the original count, she may have sold a few.

Then the slugthrowers went up on the walls in their display frames while ammunition was hidden in bed frames or cuts in the underside of mattresses. Pieces of three PPG rifles were scattered about similarly hidden everywhere they could find them.

"I guess you want to know what that scene earlier was about," Rally said grimmly as their new home was armed and secured.

"Was it about the war?" Shanti asked, curiosity brimming again.

"Yes," Rally said. "Someone...close to me died on a trip, caught in the crossfire when the war started. So I joined up. I had a bit of a reputation by that point due to bounty hunting, so EarthForce gave me...special jobs."

"What kind of jobs?" Vivian asked.

"Nothing we need to talk about," Rally said. "Just enough that there's a lot of minbari out there that probably don't like me. Thankfully, they don't put people like me on the news."

She wouldn't be universally known and despised like Sheridan, but then the people that would hate and despise her would be veterans, their families and their political leaders. Namely, the people that would come to a diplomatic station like this.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, questioning her decision to come here yet again.

"Is that where you learned to speak Minbari?" Shanti asked.

"Sort of," Rally said, more willing to speak of this. "I had a bit of bad luck near the end of the war and ended up in a pirate ship run by rogue Drazi. There was also a Minbari there who had experienced the same bad luck. We got free, but damaged the ship in the process and ended up adrift in space for a while. Drazi food sucks, by the way. When we finally got picked up, the war was over."

"Is that why we move so much?" Vivian asked. "Are you afraid someone will come after us for revenge? I know it's not business. I thought it was Psi-Corps, but we hadn't started...doing things when you moved us the first two times."

Rally took a deep breath and sat down on one of the desks.

"That's something I'll have to talk to you about soon," Rally said. "But not yet, you're still young, you don't have know that yet."

Rally could tell by the looks on the girls' faces that she'd satisfied neither of them with her answers. Shanti at least looked merely disappointed.

*****

Sheridan walked over to his new desk as he rehearsed his speech, inserting small changes here and there to fit the situation he was moving into.

"It was old Earth President who said..." he paused as he read the report he'd just requested.

Rally Vincent, EarthForce Marines, specialist. Assigned to behind-the-lines discouragement.

Sheridan frowned as he read the last bit. Hunter-killers did not have the best of reputations among either side of the war. The few he'd met or heard of since the war ended were currently in prison for murders they'd committed after the war.

"Discharged for 'aberrant social interactions', meaning she's either homicidal or homosexual," he noted, shaking his head.

He lay bets on the latter after having met her, EarthForce had gotten very reactionary in the days after the end of the war, throwing away two centuries worth of developed tolerance.

"Licensed gun dealer, licensed provider of military and law enforcement grade weaponry, private investigator's license," his eyes widened briefly at the growing list of credentials. "Bounty hunter's license, master gunsmith, highest marksmanship results on record. MCMAP instructor qualified. Licensed to carry concealed weapons. Awards for valor from the Chicago Police Office. Next of kin, Shanti Vincent and Vivian Vincent, officially adopted as of seven years ago."

He shook his head, there was a bit more to this, he was sure of it. But Hunter-Killer records weren't easy to come by.

Ivanova came in through the room, straightening her uniform.

"They're ready for you, sir," she said.

"Hmm?" Sheridan noted looking up. "Oh, thank you. Lieutenant Commander, come take a look at this."

Ivanova walked over and looked down at the screen, quickly coming to the same conclusions as Sheridan.

"A hunter-killer," she noted. Her eyes widened as they moved further down. "A hunter-killer with legal access to military hardware. Why are we looking at this?"

"She's on the station with her foster daughters," Sheridan noted. "See if you can learn a bit more about her. She struck me as a bit jumpy."

"All of those people are from what I here," Ivanova said. "But I'll put a request in. How deep do you want me to get in?"

"If she's just a veteran here with family, I'd rather not bother her," Sheridan cautioned. "Just...keep it casual. She asked if there was a civilian firing range."

"All right, shouldn't be too hard," Ivanova said. "Pretty soon, security is probably going to be taking their weapons to her for customization or maintenance. Shouldn't be hard to keep a casual watch on her."

"Okay, let's get this speech finished," he said.

As Sheridan walked into the command room, he turned to face the crew and opened his mouth to begin his speech with a story about visiting the Dalai Lama.

"Sorry, we have a priority request," a deck officer said, who immediately noted the flustered appearance of his new commanding officer.

"What's it relating to?" Sheridan asked.

"He won't say, sir," the deck officer said. "He's a minbari and he insists there is danger to the station. He wants to speak to you face to face, sir."

"All right," Sheridan said, deflating as his opportunity to give a speech was taken away. "I'll be right there."

*****

"His name is Kalain," the Minbari said, coolly. "He was the second-in-command on a cruiser. When his commander died, he took over. He is here now and I feel he is a danger to the safety of this station."

"What makes you think that he's a danger?" Sheridan asked.

"I have my reasons, otherwise I would not be here," the thin man said. "Arrange to have him picked up and I will arrange to have him returned to Minbar."

"You say he was second-in-command on a cruiser," Sheridan noted. "Which one?"

"I don't see how that is important," the Minbari noted curtly.

"Was it the Trigati?" Sheridan asked, unfazed.

With a clearly disgruntled look, the Minbari nodded.

"What's the Trigati?" Ivanova asked.

With a deep breath, the Minbari reluctantly went into an explanation of the end of the Earth-Minbari war and how the commander of the Trigati killed himself rather than surrender.

"Since then, the Trigati has been rogue," the man said.

"There's one thing I don't get," Sheridan said, standing up. "You said you worked in the Minbari government, with the Ministry of Culture?"

"That's right," was the response.

"Then how do you know a high-ranking member of the Warrior caste well enough to recognize him twelve years later?" Sheridan asked pointedly.

"I would answer your question," the Minbari said. "If I recognized your authority. Unlike your predecessor, my government wasn't consulted on your appointment."

"EarthGov felt the Minbari had too much influence on Babylon 5," Sheridan snapped. "Times change."

"The day a man such as you is assigned to a position of this importance is a dark day indeed," the Minbari said stepping forward, close into Sheridan's face. "We lost many of our best warriors on the Black Star. And many more to your assassin on Proxima 3. We do not forget such things. If there is a doom on this station, then you brought it here!"

Then the man stormed out of the room, without listening.

"You're right, they don't like me," Sheridan noted blandly to Ivanova.

"Well, the Blackstar was their flagship," Ivanova noted.

"That's what made it a good target," Sheridan agreed.

"What did happen with the Blackstar?" Ivanova asked in curiosity. "I heard it was some new manuever, but I never heard the details."

"There wasn't much to it," he said. "We couldn't lock on to their ships, some sort of stealth technology, so I got the idea of miningthe asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. A fusion bomb doesn't need a targeting lock to hit a target. They lost the Black Star and three of their cruisers before they got out."

He took a moment to think things through.

"I don't like what he said about an assassin, however," he said. "Sounds like our hunter-killer."

"Shall I make her something more than a casual priority then?" Ivanova asked.

"Yeah," Sheridan's eyes started to stare off for a moment. "But first, I think I know where Kalain might be."

*****

Despite Rally's unwillingness to explain just why they moved so much, as had already been noted, the girls were aware that there was a danger they were avoiding. Given that they had to avoid PsyCorps anyway, that was pretty obvious, though it seemed there was more than just that.

It was also obvious that Rally didn't believe they were being actively hunted, because they hadn't changed their names ever, though Rally had warned of the possibility two years ago.

One, among many, of the reasons that it was obvious they were trying to avoid attention, was what had become a Vincent family home Christening tradition: reviewing the exits and escape plans.

"Okay," Rally said, unfurling a plan layout of their new home's sector and level along with an overall blueprint. "Becky got these blueprints for us last year, and 'Auntie May' did a light recon for us on her vacation a couple months ago. There's a maintenance shaft behind...that wall."

She pointed toward the back of the quarters and the two girls looked in the direction toward the blank wall.

"We're going to make a door," she said and then turned to look toward a new piece of furniture, a tall set of shelves. "And fix that to it to keep it hidden."

"I'm doing the cutting, right?" Shanti asked, raising her hand.

"Right, Kitten," Rally said. "Vivi, you can tell if the tunnel is clear?"

"Sort of..." she said shrugging. "It's a place, not a thing. Everything is faded."

"Here or not here is fine, Vivi," Rally said encouragingly.

She traced her finger along the plans of the station, marking the maintenance shaft.

"There's a pass to the next level here," Rally said. "We're level 8. If we have to bug out, we want level 18. There's a public comm station there that's hidden behind a few squats and never used anymore. Becky's sent us her most recent contact info, that should be secure. She says the longest its taken for her to arrange passage out of here is five hours. She already has our emergency money set aside."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of tiny cylinders.

"We've got the same old phone cams," Rally said.

Vivian nodded, recognizing the items. An old friend of Rally's named Roy had had those rigged up with a signal that operated on an unused bandwidth and sent out scrambled image that anybody without one of their modified cells would take as mere background static. They shouldn't even have been a blip on most scans.

"So we'll have eyes on the corridors and lifts around us by end of the day," Rally continued. "And on the shaft as soon as we can get the back door made and hidden."

Rally looked up and moved her head between the two girls.

"Any questions?" she asked.

"Is there a school here?" Vivi asked. "I didn't see many kids around."

"There're a few kids," Rally said. "But not many of any one race, so...it's going to be a tutor, girls."

"What?" Vivi asked. "No school? It's bad enough I keep having to leave behind friends. You're saying there's going to be nobody here?"

"But, no school, just a tutor," Shanti said happily.

"If we're lucky," Rally said. "We're only going to be here a couple of years, then it's somewhere with a college."

"Why do we need college?" Shanti asked. "You didn't go to college."

"I apprenticed with my father," Rally said, in the weary tone of voice that said she'd explained this before. "That's equivalent really. And then I went to the military, so I spent just as much time and effort."

"Can't we apprentice to you then?" Shanti asked.

"Aren't we already?" Vivi asked.

"Yes, but do either of you want to make a career of either gunsmithing or this stuff?" Rally asked.

"Err, not really," Shanti said, blushing.

"Not my first choice," Vivi snorted as she unwrapped a stick of gum.

"College," their foster mother said firmly.

"College," both girls agreed.

"It'll be a correspondence course if we have to," Rally noted as she rolled up the plans and straightened up. "Well, anything you want to do before today, now that all the normal stuff is settled in?"

"How about some sodas for the fridge?" Vivi asked.

"Wasn't there an arcade in...Red Sector, I think?" Shanti asked.

"Can you play a game without burning it?" Vivi asked.

"I can," Shanti said, her cheerful expression turning into a pouting frown.

"Sounds good," Rally said, turning to eye Vivi and her tight t-shirt. "And then new  
clothes."

"It's not any tighter than stuff I've seen you wear," Vivi muttered.

"When something shrinks in the laundry," Rally grumbled under her breath.

*****

Shanti leaned forward over the game machine, strafing and shooting as her holographic figure came across zombie after zombie and the occasional weird mutant creature. The sleeves of her blouse and jacket were rolled up and her feet were in a sturdy stance, impressive given the heels of her shoes, under her long skirt. The green fabric swayed one way or another as she continued her game.

The few kids in the small arcade had started to gather around her as she killed monster after monster and the game announced her streaks.

"Headshot, 30 kill streak, 40 kill streak, headshot, headshot, 41 kill streak," the computer was saying.

Vivian looked over at her twin sister and shook her head. Who was she kidding telling Rally she wasn't interested in doing this stuff all her life?

She was such a momma's girl.

The short-haired girl turned away from watching her sister and to the issue of shopping for some new clothes. They didn't have much selection, but that was nothing new. She'd picked up a few t-shirts and some new jeans, but just some comfortable stuff, nothing all that inspiring.

And then she saw it.

A jacket, just like the leather one Rally used on stakeouts or anything she thought might turn into a shooting event. It was black and sleek and tough looking. And it was just the right size. She narrowed her eyes and looked either direction before grabbing it and pointedly not looking at the price.

"100 killing streak, 121 killing streak," the computer continued. "Texas! Texas! Texas! Texas! Texas!"

Several people looked around in confusion as the voiceover that was supposed to be keeping score started just repeating the same word over and over again.

"Heh, I guess I broke it..." she said embarrassed before turning back to the game.

The computer was still repeating the word "Texas" anytime she did something comment worthy. Which, given she hadn't broken streak yet, was pretty much anytime she fired. It was a somewhat annoying thing, kill too much too fast and the game started yelling "Texas" at you, and no explanation for it. Shanti always wondered who'd programmed that in.

As she reached the end of the level, she sighed and wished that her real life shooting scores came even half-way as good as her virtual scores. While waiting for the game to load the next level, and ignoring the fact that the word "Texas" repeated over and over instead of the next story segment, she glanced over to where her sister was shopping.

Didn't she own any dresses? And she kept her hair so short. Really, it was silly how much of a momma's girl her twin was sometimes.

Rally was watching them from a cafe where a few packs of water and sports drinks stood next to a small selection soda three-liters as she watched her kids.

Shanti was, as usual, eagerly shooting things in the video game arcade. That was kind of worrisome. It seemed to Rally that the girl only ever took an interest in things that involved guns or war. As ever, she tried to think of a way to broaden the girl's interests and vigorously missed her Cobra, sitting in storage in a garage somewhere in Chicago.

Glancing over toward Vivi she grimaced a moment at Vivi's selections. The girl was getting old enough that she'd have to talk to her about how to dress appropriately as a woman. Maybe look into some teenagers' sports jackets and woman's business fashions. Something a bit more than just t-shirts, jeans and leather jackets.

She shook her head and wondered just why kids fixated on things like that.

Then the overhead security alarms started blaring.

"Red alert, red alert," came the call. "All station personel to battle stations. Residents report to nearest shelters."

Rally stood up and looked toward her girls as they turned to face her. She gestured sharply and they quickly finished their business to catch up to her. Looking toward the monitors, she watched the image of a Minbari cruiser hovering sinisterly in open space.

"What the hell is going on?" she wondered.

*****

Coming as it did during the middle of the business day, the Red Sector civilian alert shelter was more than a little cramped. The Vincent women worked their way through the crowd, Rally's eyes scanning carefully through the crowds.

The largest single group was human, but that was a plurality, with various alien races filling out the mass. Rally noted, with an obvious amount of distaste, a large number of drazi loitering in one color. She avoided that part of the room quite clearly.

Eventually, she guided the girls to a small area in a corner with a good view of the door and most of the shelter area. A smattering of security guards wandered through the area, with most stationed at the now sealed door.

"Can I get a soda?" Shanti asked, eyeing the vending machine in a nearby corner of the room.

The drinks they had bought before the alert weren't really suited for drinking while sitting around.

"Get the both of us one as well?" Rally said, setting down what she was carrying and pointing toward Vivian and herself.

Shanti nodded and walked nimbly across the room, in between the other people, taking smooth gliding steps on her heels that had Rally arching an eyebrow.

"So, when did she learn to walk on heels like that?" Rally asked.

"Aunt May, last year," Vivi said.

"I thought so," Rally muttered. "What else did she teach the two of you?"

"She asked a lot about boyfriends," Vivian said. "Then she asked about girlfriends, something about 'making sure she had the right target in mind this time'. What'd she mean by that?"

Rally rolled her eyes, May couldn't seriously be trying to play her matchmaking games with Vivi and Shanti as well now.

"That woman is handful," Rally said.

"Barely," Vivian replied with a snort.

"And who taught you to..." Rally started to ask.

She was interrupted by the sound of a crash across the room that brought both to a standing position.

"Watch where you're going," a loud voice declared lifting out of the throat of a young and rather drunk looking Centauri.

Not far away a Narn stood, simmering in fury as he shook off the drink that had been spilled over him. People pushed away from the two, making it hard for the nearby security staff to get to the center of the trouble.

"How typical of the Centauri to flail about drunkenly and think it a show of authority," the Narn snapped. "If this is an example of your glory, we'll be pushing you out of your own homeworld before you realize it."

"Yes, we saw what you could do in quadrant 37," the Centauri said tauntingly. "So fearsome it takes invisible faeries to eliminate one of your outposts."

At about that time, the crowd moved and a girl in a green skirt was pushed unceremoniously out of the tightening crowd and stumbled back into the open circle as the Narn lunged outward.

Shanti was carrying three sodas and still recovering from being unwillingly shoved into the center of the problem. The Narn tried to stop himself as the girl came into the picture, but was already badly overcommitted. Shanti's own training helped minimize the impact and almost kept them both standing, until a heel snapped under and both toppled to the floor.

Vivian started to move forward as Rally pushed her back down and started shoving her way through the crowd.

"Stay here," she said, just short of a command for the teen.

She was closer than most of security, but she still had to get through the packed crowd. Still, she was in a position to notice the glint of a PPG casing in the Centauri drunkard's hand before he turned in a way that hid it from view.

Rally wasn't the only Vincent to see the weapon.

Shanti's eyes fixed on the weapon and a thrill of danger worked through her as she took in the gloating look on the Centauri's eyes. She was in the path of fire and Rally'd have her tanned if she ever fired on any target with anyone in the way like she was now, but the girl seriously doubted the Centauri had thought that through or cared to.

As the gun came shakily into line, it glowed brightly for a moment before erupting in the Centauri's hand in an apparent misfire. Then the gloating Centauri's posturing turned to agonized screams as the weapon seared his hand and set fire to the arm of his clothing terribly fast.

Flailing about, and the crowd falling away before him, the man moved to a wall to smash his enflamed arm against the wall in an attempt to put it out. Shanti staring fixedly at him as he moved, seemingly in shock.

A hand on the young girl's shoulder brought her attention away from the unfortunate man as security reached him.

The fire was out soon after.

"Are you all right, Kitten?" Rally asked, helping her up.

"I broke a heel," she said with a pout that earned a small, amused smile from Rally.

"I'm sorry, Miss..." the Narn said, struggling to his feet.

"Vincent," Rally said without looking around. "Next time don't be so quick to get in a fight. There's already enough of that going around."

The woman was busy dusting Shanti off and checking her over, though she spared a moment to nod at the monitors showing the Babylon 5 starfuries facing down against the Trigati's fighters.

A security officer made his way over to her and looked to the Narn a bit irritably before glancing to her.

"Is everything all right, Ma'am?" he asked as he reached down to pick up the sodas and hand them over to Shanti and Rally.

"Some wardrobe damage is all I think," Rally said. "Anything bruised, Shanti?"

"No, I rolled into the fall like you taught me," the girl said. "But....my shoe?"

"I think we'll be good," Rally said, ignoring her daughter for a moment.

"All right," the officer said, turning toward the Narn. "And you, get over here, right now! You moron, we're in a state of emergency here."

As Rally escorted Shanti back to where Vivi sat, the girl whispered up to her.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked.

"Talk about it later," Rally said.

*****

It was barely fifteen minutes later when the Trigati self-destructed and the alert came to an end.

Rally watched up at the monitor as the shelter started to thin out and shook her head. There was a far away look in her eyes as she considered old memories.

"We haven't heard the end of that," she said quietly.

The twins around her looked confused for a moment.

"I suppose you took that to be a sort of victory, human?" an incensed voice said to the side, drawing the attention of the two girls to the Minbari speaker.

"Nobody won anything here," Rally said grimmly.

She looked over to the Minbari, noted he was too young to have been in the war and cocked her head to the side wordlessly to her kids.

*****

It was later that night, with the girls getting in some exercise before bed, as Rally tested the reception of the mini-cams they'd hidden in the hallways during a clear moment, that a call came on the Stellar-Com monitor.

Putting up the camera, Rally reached up and accepted the incoming call. She wasn't all that surprised to see a woman with Lieutenant Commander's bars on the screen.

"Rally Vincent?" the woman asked professionally. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Ivanova."

"That's me," the woman said with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"The Captain wanted me to make sure to tell you," the woman said with a friendly tone. "There isn't a civilian targetting range, but as a veteran we can give you access to security's."

"And family?" Rally asked, a bit cautious as the fact that she was a veteran came up.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Ivanova noted. "We'll just need to see about some paperwork. Oh, and welcome to Babylon 5. Hope you had a more or less decent first day." "It was a bit full, I'll tell you that," the gunsmith said, shaking her head. "Hope it gets a bit quieter from here on."

Ivanova seemed like she wanted to say something, but forced it down.

"We all hope that," the Lieutenant Commander said.

* * *

Made as my own example for what I've been calling the "Parents and Children" challenge on a couple of places, basically:

This is based on the Parents and Children thread which Kender and I worked on some years ago.

I have occasionally placed challenges on other sites for people to do their own versions.

The two versions Kender and I did were "Thieves and Ninjas" and "Wild Dragons" you can find both in the Threads List

"Parents and Children - Thieves and Ninjas" becomes "Thieves and Ninjas" about 100-105 episodes total

"Parents and Children - Wild Dragons" becomes "Wild Dragons" about 100-105 episodes total

As to what I'd like to see here:

the parents can be from the same series or a crossover couple, it need not have been a happy coupling, but that is preferred. If unhappy, then the unhappiness is in the past and the parent with custody moved on with someone else or alone

the guardian has to be someone from the same series as one of the parents and it there must be some reason people wouldn't automatically think of looking for the children with them

at least one of the biological parents had a hand in raising the children. They may have had a spouse that was a step-parent. If there was a step-parent, then the other biological parent has had little to nothing to do with the kids.

both the characters (assuming there were either both biological parents, or the biological parent and the step parent) that were raising the children primarily are dead.

The parents were killed by murder.

If the setting is fantasy, colonial or medieval, then the murderers might be known but too powerful or influential to challenge openly.

If the setting is modern, then the murderers are either unknown (ie have gotten away with it) or else have gone into hiding.

Futuristic settings can be either depending on the density of civilization. Star Trek, for instance is more along the lines of a modern setting, so it would be more likely for murderers to be unknown. Star Wars is more like a fantasy where some powerful people can get away with such things.

Characters can either be raised with an eye toward avenging their parents or toward making sure they can keep themselves safe. Vengeance will be harder to get away with in modern times, however.

If the children were raised by only one biological parent and a step parent, then it is permissable to have their other biological parent be one of the murderers.

The original thread was limited to the Ranma 1/2 universe + potential crossovers. There is no such limit here, though most characters involved should be anime or anime based.

oh, it is permissable to move settings around if you wish, as you'll see in a moment when I post the idea I'm starting with

and please, comment away

I'm hoping this challenges produces a number of interesting fics.


	2. Revelations

Much of the first night was spent in the quiet hours of the night cutting into the wall, once they'd confirmed as much as possible that it was a solid, though thin, wall and didn't contain any important, or dangerous, wires or pipes.

It had to be done all in one go, so that they could immediately camouflage the work, otherwise someone might notice the half-completed entrance and that would be unacceptable.

Rally sat with their minicams on the hallway feeding into the portable computer monitor, watching for trouble outside as Vivian leaned against the wall next to her sister and concentrated on feeling for every fiber of mental and emotional presence that she could out in the tunnel.

It was sort of like trying to look at one of those optical illusion mystery pictures, and it was giving her a headache. Looking toward Shanti, her sister was having fun getting to use her ability, but was getting tired as well.

Small sparks appeared inches ahead of Shanti's eyes occasionally, though, for the most part a burst of white hot fire appeared spontaneously ahead of her, burrowing into the metal like they used to play with clay as little kids.

Rally kept them both supplied with water, enforcing breaks occasionally, especially after Shanti cut enough to allow them to hear some of the echoes in the tunnel beyond. And, as Shanti moved to another section of wall, she'd started drilling the hinges into the wall and the as yet unfinished door.

As the cutting was finished, Shanti stepped forward toward the heated piece of metal and leaned her hands against it. Quickly, the heat around the new construction seemed to sap away and the uniformly cool air of the station took hold again.

The long-haired girl took a deep breath and stepped back away to go sit on a bed as Rally tossed her and Vivi a bottle of water each and opened the new door on its hinges in a test. Shanti had rounded the inside edges of the wall so that it smoothly bent in without creaking.

Then it was just a matter of quietly as possible putting in the locks and levers, and finally the camouflage bookshelf.

"So," Rally asked as she and Vivian stocked the bookshelf. "Any chance you're going to read any of these books?"

Behind them Shanti had finished her water bottle and curled up into sleep on her bed.

"Life, the Universe and Everything?" Vivi asked. "Why'd you buy a philosophy book?"

"It's not philosophy, it's humor," Rally said. "I saw the movie once."

"Where'd you get these books anyway?" Vivian asked.

"Used book store," Rally said. "We didn't have enough of our own books with just the technical manuals and such. And they won't move around much when we open and close, because these shelves are made for ships."

She pointed to the ridges that lay in front of the books, holding them in place in case of a sudden shift.

After a quick test of the door from both sides and applying some break away molding on the dark side of the maintenance shaft exit, Rally and Vivian put up the equipment and then settled down in their own beds for the night.

It was a few days later that found the Vincents in the Red Sector outside of the Security Headquarters.

A tall, dark haired man with deep-set blue eyes greeted them at the door, smiling in a friendly manner as he looked over the woman and the two girls behind her.

"Rally Vincent," he said with an eager look to his eyes. "This is something of an honor. I'm the acting Chief of Security."

"You know, I wasn't recognized this much while I lived on Proxima 3 the last few years," Rally said, trying not to sound bitter.

"Well, this is the front line now," the man said. "A lot of people who were very appreciative of your work ended up here."

Rally kept the frown off her face and turned to her girls.

"Well, we're here to take a few shots on the range," she said.

"Lieutenant Commander Ivanova said you'd be in," he said. "Right this way. These are your daughters?"

"This is Vivian and Shanti," Rally said, noting the doubtful look in the man's eyes. "My kids."

"I hadn't heard you married," he said.

"We're adopted," Shanti said.

"I see," the man said. "Well, let's get you to the range then. The lieutenant commander told you that you'd have to settle for using the security weapons for now?"

"She did," Rally said, clearly a bit unsatisfied with that.

"We'll need some time to see if a slugthrower is safe in here," the man said with a smile.

He led them to a long room with narrow slots, a row of targets down range.

Rally surveyed the room with a low whisper, nodding and clearly impressed.

"This is very nice," she said. "Amazing what you guys have in this place."

"Care to try a few shots?" he asked, pulling his own gun out and offering it to her. "I'd be honored if you were to use my weapon."

"Sure," Rally said.

"Can I try next?" Shanti asked.

"Everybody'll get a turn," Rally said as she accepted the gun and looked down range.

Then the plasma bursts were flying through the air, sheering through the target in the back. Rally handed the weapon off to Shanti as she moved to call the target forward to the shooting position.

The security officer moved forward to look at the results and blinked. On first glance, it looked like it was a scattering of random and wild shots, certainly not the work of the master markswoman Miss Vincent was reputed to be.

On closer look, however, each impact was very precisely placed in a way that incapacitated the target without killing them. There was something even more unsatisfying about this discovery than he had been when he thought she'd just fired randomly.

Off to the side, Shanti took her turn and passed the gun on to Vivian.

Vivian froze as the gun came into her hand, eyes moving rapidly for several seconds.

"Rally..." Shanti said nervously, drawing her guardian's attention over to Vivian just before the fit ended.

"I...think I'll wait until we can use our own stuff," Vivian said with a sick tone of voice as the security officer turned about.

The short-haired twin set the gun down gingerly, as if it was something disgusting. Rally narrowed her eyes and looked toward the security guard.

"You said acting head of security?" she said. "Who's the normal chief on station?"

"That would be Mr. Garibaldi," the man said.

"Where would he be?" Rally asked, noting the somewhat familiar name.

"He's in medlab," the security man said, brow furrowing as he started to notice the cooling atmosphere. "Someone shot him in the back. Hazards of the job. Especially with the bad element around here."

"I'm not arguing that point," Rally said with a smile. "Well, thank you. We'll be back as soon as the paperwork on our weapons is certified, Mr..."

"Oh, call me Jack," the man responded.

As they exited the area calmly, Rally looked back over her shoulder and then down toward Vivian.

"Murder?" she asked quietly.

Vivian nodded, shivering.

"More than one," she whispered.

"Fill me in when we get to the apartment," Rally said.

Jack looked over Rally Vincent's sheet and frowned.

Shoulder, elbow, wrist and knees.

Every shot was placed precisely in place to hit major points of the nervous system or musculature in such a way that the target would lose the practical use of the struck area. The target would then be out of the fight and alive.

It was a mark of supreme mastery that a shooter would be able to place a shot so precisely, especially with a weapon that was admittedly not their preferred style. Firearms often lacked the precision of such melee weapons as swords and knives, but in the hands of this woman, that limit was circumvented.

However, the fact that she aimed not to kill bothered the man. He'd heard Vincent reputation as a masterful assassin, and yet now it seemed that all of that was a lie. He'd been considering recruiting the woman to the cause, she would have been useful, despite her aberrant tastes in lovers, but now he didn't think she'd be able to go through with what would need to be done.

Just proof that people like her had to be weeded out. And there was no telling what she was doing with her foster daughters.

Well, it was just minor disappointment. Everything else was going right as rain. Too bad the chief had to get in the way like that, he hadn't liked being forced to betray the man, but that's what it took to purge the old softness and forge a hard new Alliance that wouldn't bow down to any alien scum.

"I told you not to get involved in stuff too big for you, Garibaldi."

"That's what the big guy said," Vivi noted. "And then that Jack person shot the guy I think is Garibaldi in the back."

"You said there was more than one murder?" Rally said.

"Yeah, he killed the big guy and the other two later," Vivi said. "Called it self-defense."

"So we've got a corrupt cop," Rally said, frowning. "I'm going out for a bit, I need to talk to your Aunt Becky."

"Should we stay here?" Shanti asked.

Rally paused and considered things, she couldn't keep them with her all the time, and she couldn't reasonably insist that they don't leave the apartment unless she was with her. It had been a few days since they had arrived. They should know the spots to avoid now, and it wasn't like this Jack person would be coming after them.

"Where're you thinking of heading?" she asked.

"There's NASCAR at Doug's Dugout," Vivian said without missing a beat.

"There is?" Rally said, sounding a bit put out. "Hmm, I'll meet you there then. Shanti?"

"I'm going to the arcade again," Shanti noted, kicking her feet.

"I'll check on you on my way to the sports bar," Rally said. "I shouldn't be long, send me a message if plans change."

"Right, Rally," Vivi said, waving at her as she walked carefully into the tunnel after opening the bookshelf.

The maintenance tunnels were dark and poorly lit, but also almost completely unpopulated. Rally and the girls had been through their escape path a couple of times already, and she knew the path well enough. Soon she was picking her way through debris and detritus, avoiding the sight of lurkers and coming to a dusty comm port.

Cautiously, looking over her shoulder, she thought back into her mind and then bent down to hack the port off the Stellar Comm standard channel so that she could uplink to Becky's current secure lines.

It wasn't long before she found Becky's face staring back at her, blinking tiredly.

"Rally, do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked.

"Sorry, Becky," Rally said. "I need you to do some digging."

"And it couldn't wait?" Becky asked.

"Vivian found a murder weapon," Rally said.

"And you need my help for that? You've done this before" Becky sniped wearily. "You're an investigator. Investigate and talk to the security staff when you've got the evidence."

"The suspect is acting chief of security," Rally whispered, checking over her shoulder. "The normal chief is in a coma in medlab, shot in the back."

Becky was instantly awake and alert.

"My advice is to stay away from politics and corrupt cops," she said. "You're not in a position to be rocking the boat."

"And that's why I need help," Rally said irritably. "I can't go to the station security and say, you've got a murderer in your boss's chair. And I can't investigate, because everything I'd need to investigate is in security or in restricted files."

"Rally, I've read some of your old operations reports," Becky said dryly.

"Okay," Rally said. "I could investigate, but I could hardly do that without attracting attention. And I already have more of that than I need."

"I know," Becky said. "Babylon 5 Command requested your file. They got your public records because of a computer glitch."

Rally looked at Becky's smile and arched an eyebrow.

"You're toying with EarthForce records?" she asked. "Isn't that a bit too dangerous?"

"I'm not digging in anything classified," Becky said. "You'd be amazed how lax the security is on basic personnel records. I can pretty easily alter a request for records to make sure they only get the public records. The system leans that way anyway. Now the second request, that I can only slow down, they were a bit more specific in what they wanted this time."

Rally arched an eyebrow and closed her gaping mouth as she stared at her old friend's image.

"Right," Rally said. "Anyway, I can't really do much on this end. And a crooked cop is too much of a risk for us. I was wondering if you could arrange a message to get to Babylon 5 Command."

"Anything, specific you want me to include in this message?" Becky asked.

"Coming," Rally said as she started to relay what Vivian had told her.

"Rally, did you say this crooked cop killed the people he was working for?" Becky asked. "Could he have been covering his tracks?"

"I think more likely that he was the go between for someone else," Rally said.

"You haven't been there barely more than a week," Becky said in frustration. "All right, all right, we're getting a bit too long winded here, better drop the feed. I'll get your message out."

"Thanks, Becky," Rally said, watching her old friend yawn before the comm port blinked off.

Rally took a moment to undo her hack so that the next person to use the comm, if anyone, would find it just a normal stellar comm port.

The former bounty hunter walked carefully away from the Stellar Comm, eyes watching the area carefully as she returned to the maintenance shaft, no sense being seen coming out of this area.

Hopefully, there was still a race going on when she caught up with Vivian.

Ivanova was about to head to bead and leave the CnC with the night crew when the anonymous communique came in. She leaned forward to read the information, yawning and turned more awake with each passing word she read.

"Where'd that last communique come from?" she asked the comm officer.

"Unknown," he said after a moment's checking. "There aren't any colonies on that line right now."

"That would mean either a ship or a comm-burst satellite," Ivanova said as she applied command-only restrictions to the incoming message. "Locate the captain for me."

"The captain is in medlab," one of the other night crew said.

"Then that's where I'm heading," she said.

Ivanova came to medlab to see a rather unusual sight. Sheridan was unstrapping himself from some sort of machine, looking a bit groggy. The machine was then hooked up to the unconscious Garibaldi.

"Well, your vitals are still strong," Dr. Franklin was saying, "but there's a definite instability. We'll give it another ten minutes and then I'll start my shift."

"Is there something I should know?" Ivanova asked, momentarily distracted from her purpose.

"Oh, Susan," Sheridan said in a friendly tone, blinking away the fatigue. "There's nothing to worry about, just something like a blood transfusion."

"You're using the alien healing device?" Susan said, blinking in something like shock.

Stephen was about to say something, but stopped and stared in shock as Ivanova identified what was happening.

"How do you..."

"Never mind that," Susan said. "I need to talk to the Captain."

"Something happen?" Sheridan asked, curiously turning toward her.

"We got a very strange message," Susan said. "I'd dismiss it as crank, but it came on Babylon 5 Command channel out of empty space an unknown distance away."

"That's a lot of effort for a crank," Sheridan noted. "What's the message say?"

"It gives a description of the attack on Chief Garibaldi and the deaths of Edgar Devereaux and his men," Susan said. "It gives a very complete description, including some details we've kept to ourselves and some we'd only guessed at."

"And does it say who pulled the trigger?" Sheridan asked.

"It says that Garibaldi's aide did," the Lt Commander noted.

"We already know he killed Devereaux and company in self-defense," Franklin noted.

"The claim here is that it wasn't self defense," Ivanova noted.

"Is there any proof?" Sheridan asked. "Or is it all just accusation."

"Just accusation for now," Ivanova said. "But the method of delivery and the details, I thought it was too much to ignore."

"I think you're right," Sheridan said, nodding. "Be sure to keep an eye on this aide for now, if something more concrete develops, we'll act more decisively."

He paused for a moment and then turned toward her.

"How about the other matter you're supposed to be keeping an eye on?" he asked.

"Frustrating, EarthGov has lost my file request twice now," Ivanova said pointedly. "The first time I got information it was the file we already have. I had to make a very specific and detailed request to get anywhere."

"Someone's trying to block you," Sheridan said with interest.

"That's my impression as well," Susan said. "Other than that, she hasn't done anything suspicious. Last I heard, she was doing some security consulting for some of the Red Sector shops. She took residences in Brown Sector."

"Brown Sector..." Sheridan said, curious. "Most merchants take living quarters in Red Sector. But it would be out of the way and mean less contact with others, that fits the profile of a veteran looking for privacy."

"So, yeah," Ivanova said. "Doesn't look like there's much there."

"Excuse me," Stephen said, looking between the two. "Who are we talking about now?"

"Nothing of importance it seems," Sheridan said.

"Okay then," Ivanova noted. "So, I guess it's my turn now?"

"Excuse me?" Sheridan said.

"You obviously are taking turns to reduce the drain," Ivanova said. "And if two people spread it out, then three people will spread it out even further. So, like I said: my turn."

"Is there some sort of military academy class on pushing yourself into things without waiting for being invited?" Franklin asked casually.

"It's called assault tactics," Sheridan noted.

"I do sell weapons," Rally told the man in front of her. "But station rules prohibit transfer of weapons to civilians or aliens on board."

"But I need a weapon now," the man said insistently. "In another couple of weeks, the Drazi are going to be at each others' throats and I don't want to be caught in the middle."

"The Drazi are what?" Rally asked, a bit confused.

Drazi culture was not something she had much of an interest in.

"Every few years or decades," the man explained. "The Drazi split into two groups and fight each other for a year to figure out who will be the ruling group until the next time. It'll be chaos! I need to be able to defend myself."

"You said this was going to be a few weeks?" Rally asked, keeping it in the back of her mind.

"That's right," the man said.

"Do you have enough for a round trip to Proxima 3?" Rally asked.

"Well, yes but..." the man stopped as Rally raised her hand.

"Here's what I'll suggest," Rally said. "I've got some of my merchandise there, including a few stun guns that should be perfect for what you wa..."

"Stun guns!" the man shrieked. "I don't want to be zapping them with static cling while they come at me with poisoned knives. I want to blow them away."

"Trust me," Rally said. "I know where you're coming from, I spent three months stuck on Drazi pirate vessel, the first week of which was spent learning Minbari so I could convince the other prisoner to work together with me to escape. The next three days was spent in pitched battle which left me adrift in space. I really don't like Drazi, but if all you're worried about doing is defending yourself, a stunner is more than enough to do the job. Now, did you want to make the purchase or not?"

"And how do I know this isn't some kind of scam?" the man asked.

"Oh, for Heaven's," Rally grumbled rolling her eyes. "This is what happens, I send a message to the warehouse and give them the go ahead to give you the product, you pay on site, over there. It goes in my bank account, you've got your weapon, bring it back into the station, clear it with security, yadda yadda."

"So I pay there, not here," the man noted.

"That's right," Rally noted wearily. "Is there anything else?"

"No, I guess I should go arrange to close my business for a time," the man noted.

"I guess so," Rally noted, shaking her head.

As the man walked away she stretched out and walked across the Bazaar to head into the Zocolo for a drink as she went over her notes.

"Okay, two PPGs to security personnel, a security job to find someone skimming the till at Fresh Air, that stun gun..." she paused as she had to move around a balding security officer escorting a blonde woman with a psi-corps symbol.

A commercial telepath, common enough not to worry much about.

Telepaths didn't like her when they saw her. They were always flinching when they caught sight of her, as if they were surprised she was there. Whatever set them off, it meant they usually avoided her.

Which was just fine with her.

"Sorry," Rally said. "I didn't notice you there."

"I...I didn't either," the blonde said hesitantly.

"Well, we all get distracted," Rally noted with a guarding smirk as she walked away.

"Ms Winters," the security guard said. "They're waiting for us in Medlab."

"Right," the blonde woman said, looking away from Rally and composing herself.

G'Kar sat at the bar and nursed a drink as he waited for word from the cruiser that his government had sent to quickly survey the supposedly dead world and get back. He needed the proof to convince the others, or they were all lost.

It was dangerous, of course, but that's why they were under instructions to get in and get out quickly. No lingering to alert the ancient enemy to their presence.

If even half the old stories were true, then they had to move quickly or they would all be overwhelmed. Once he had proof, the others would have to see that.

"Can I have a Dr. Pepper?" a voice said next to G'Kar, looking to the bartender.

He turned to see an unusual sight for Babylon 5. A teenager. There were almost no children on the station save a handful of families.

This one was a human wearing a pretty dress with a thin cloth he believed was called silk. It was actually a synthetic, but it was hard to tell that from looking. She was slender, with dusky skin and long dark hair.

In a few years, she'd be a very attractive woman, the sort that, a year ago, he'd be looking to entertain privately. Heaven bless the universe for creating the females of so many species to be such lovely creatures.

Of course, this was a veritable child and he had more important matters to attend to. He started to turn back away from her to return to his own drink.

She, apparently had noticed the momentary attention, however. She turned to face him and smiled.

"Hello," she said with a smile.

"Yes, hello," G'Kar noted politely, hoping that would satisfy the girl. "You should probably go, this isn't the best place for a child like you."

"I'm fine," the girl said, waving him off.

She nodded in a friendly manner and turned back to the bartender as he gave her the drink. Then she started walking over toward the arcade, walking far too alluringly for someone of her age. If she were his daughter, there'd be no way he'd let her walk around in such a manner amongst such a mixed company.

Not until she was at least thirty.

Indeed, as he watched a pair of dock workers moved to block the girl's access to the arcade.

"What do we have here?" one said, leering. "It's tasty sweet in a pretty wrapping."

"Uhhh, okay," the girl said as G'Kar turned to face the situation cautiously. "I want to get back to my game now."

"We've got another game for you," the other said as he reached to grab the girl's shoulder.

"Let go of me," the girl snapped warningly, smile turning into a frown.

"Come on, you'll...owwwww!!!" the dock worker's proposition was interrupted as the fifteen-year old human reached up and twisted his hand around.

She was frowning intently at him as she continued twisting, apparently not noticing the other dock worker starting to recover from his shock.

Fortunately, G'Kar grabbed the man and pulled him aside forcefully.

"That would not be nice," he said with a smirk.

He turned to see security moving in and nodded, calming down. He looked to the human girl, still smiling.

"You can let go now, child," he said.

A snapping sound came from the dock worker's arm and the girl kept twisting as she continued staring past a frown. For a moment, G'Kar thought he saw a white spark erupt in front of her left eye in time with a renewed shriek from the man she was holding.

"Child," he said firmly, tapping her on the shoulder firmly but cautiously.

Almost immediately she let go, the man that had grabbed her falling back on to the ground cradling his arm. She blinked and stepped back from the scene as the security guards arrived on the seen.

"What's going on here?" one of the officers said, G'Kar recognized him as a Mr. Allen.

"That little bitch burned me with something," the pained man shrieked. "And she broke my arm."

"The...the little girl?" Allen asked with something of a smile and a laugh.

"I'm afraid the man might be correct," G'Kar said. "He and his associate here accosted the child in a highly inappropriate manner and she was forced to defend herself. But I did not see any sign of a weapon."

"Is that right?" Allen asked, turning toward the other dockworker.

"We were only playing around," the man protested.

"Well, we'll play around in security," Allan noted dryly. "What's your name, kid?"

"Shanti Vincent," the girl said nervously. "I'm..I'm sorry."

"It doesn't sound like there's a problem," Mr. Allan noted before turning toward G'Kar. "Look, Ambassador, we've got a big thing going on in security. Do you think you could watch the girl for a bit while we take these two into holding and we track down her parents."

"I would be glad to," G'Kar said with a smile.

Shanti bit her lip and rocked on her heels for a bit.

G'Kar waited until the security were gone before gesturing toward Shanti.

"Well, Miss Vincent," he said in a somewhat patronizing tone. "Shall we have some food then while we wait?"

"I have to wait then?" Shanti asked.

"I think it would be advisable," G'Kar noted. "And perhaps you can tell me where you learned to break a man's arm like that?"

"Rally taught my sister and I how to defend ourselves," Shanti said as they walked to a table and G'Kar called for a waiter. "But I always mess up."

"Well, aside from being aware of all your opponents," G'Kar said. "I'd say you did fairly well."

"I didn't," Shanti said. "I got mad again and Rally always says to stay calm."

"Rally sounds like a good teacher," G'Kar said. "But there is something to be said for letting your passions give you strength. As long as you remember next time that you were fighting two men and not one."

Shanti shook her head.

"I can't get mad," she said. "I can't let myself be angry."

"And why not?" G'Kar asked.

Shanti looked around quietly and leaned forward hesitantly. G'Kar had seen the look before. The look of a youngling who carried a secret she felt she had to get out to someone but was afraid of telling those she knew. Such children often unwisely chose to give such secrets to strangers and new acquaintances.

Luckily, G'Kar liked to think that he was a trustworthy sort and not the sort to take advantage of such a youthful error.

"I don't want to be like my mother," she whispered.

G'Kar was taken aback as he stood up straight and frowned.

"And why wouldn't you like to be like your mother?" G'Kar asked, a bit offended by this lack of respect for one's parents.

"I heard Rally talking to Aunt May and Uncle Roy once," she whispered. "My mother was...was not very nice. She hurt lots of people. She liked hurting people. She's dead and they talk like they're still afraid of her. Rally doesn't want to me to be like that. I don't want to be like that."

G'Kar took a deep breath and leaned forward.

"Child," he said seriously. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that."

Shanti looked confused at the statement.

Jack could hardly miss the cautious looks that he had been getting from some of the command staff. Ivanova was inscrutable as ever, but there were a few others that seemed to know what was going, people that had caught something of what the message was.

The other security officers hadn't started quieting down around him suddenly yet, but he'd seen Lou Welch and Zack Allen giving him quiet calculating looks.

Lou was a good man but not brilliant, it was easy to see the change in attitude he showed after a meeting with Ivanova and Sheridan. Allen was a lot more difficult to catch, the man had talent, for all he seemed to be a layabout.

Still Jack was no idiot. After all, he'd fooled Garibaldi, and they didn't have half his experience.

Somehow, they'd turned suspicious of him, so he'd started watching them closer. And when Lou started bringing Talia Winters to medlab, he'd followed and frowned on seeing Garibaldi awake and with a heavy guard outside the medlab.

"Time to disappear," he muttered.

"We've checked his office and his quarters," Welch's voice came over the link. "We haven't found him anywhere."

"Looks like we moved too late," Sheridan said with a sigh as he headed for the medlab. "Keep a watch on all ships going out. He'll try to slip away probably."

He walked into the medlab and saw Garibaldi sitting up with a pained expression.

"You are supposed to be lying down," Dr. Franklin insisted, on the edge of anger.

"Doc, I've been lying down for weeks," Garibaldi said. "If all that lying down hasn't gotten me anywhere in that time..."

"You're awake, aren't you?" the doctor said. "It seems to me that lying down a couple of weeks has gotten you pretty far."

Sheridan smirked a bit, that last statement wasn't entirely true.

"I think you should listen to the doctor, Mr. Garibaldi," Sheridan said formally as he walked in. "I've already noted I don't think much of the idea of losing my Chief of Security right after I take over the station."

Garibaldi turned to look at him with a cautious and considering look. Sheridan recognized it from the first time they'd met when the patient had first woken up. He'd need to have a private discussion with the man soon enough.

"Captain," Garibaldi said. "What's the word on the turncoat?"

"He's slipped the net," Sheridan said. "Unfortunately. Something tipped him off."

"Speaking of which," Garibaldi said. "You were asking about Jack before I had Lou bring in Ms Winters. What tipped you off?"

"We got a broadcast message from dead space," Sheridan said. "Gave a very detailed description of the event that matched what the report has on the matter. Including some details that Lieutenant Commander Ivanova tells me were never put in official statements."

"That's convenient," Garibaldi said. "And, let me guess, it didn't have anything concrete enough to actually make a move, so you set a watch. And I trained Jack, so he obviously noticed the watch and now..."

"Now he's gone to ground," Sheridan said. "You think someone sent us that warning to tip him off?"

"In order for that to happen," Garibaldi said. "Someone would have had to known you'd be getting on to him soon anyway, and somehow, I don't think anybody was about to predict that I was about to wake up and ask a telepath, of all things, to dig around in my head."

"While you figure it out," Dr. Franklin said, stepping forward into Garibaldi's face and giving him an authoritative glare. "Lay down."

"Captain!" a woman's voice shouted insistently.

Everyone turned to see Rally Vincent storming her way into the medlab with a security officer trailing behind her, trying to keep up. The woman's hand was tight around that of Vivian's, the teenager looking morbidly embarrassed at her foster-mother's behavior.

"Sorry, Captain," the woman in the security uniform said. "She wouldn't wait in headquarters."

"You try to wait," Rally snapped.

"That's all right," Sheridan said to the security officer. "I'll handle this. What seems to be the problem, Ms Vincent?"

"My problem is wondering where my daughter is," Rally snapped.

Garibaldi's eyebrows went up as he heard the name Vincent.

"Your daughter?" Sheridan asked. "I'm guessing Shanti?"

"About an hour ago, one of your security personnel, a Mr. Allen, tells me there's a 'problem with your daughter'," Rally said. "I find this one..."

She lifted up Vivian's hand demonstratively.

"Dancing to swing music outside Earhart's," Rally said. "But Shanti, who knows save Mr. Allen, who isn't at security headquarters. He's chasing a rat around the bowels of the ship with most of the other officers. Leaving behind a bunch of secretaries..."

Here the woman in security uniform bristled in an offended manner.

"...who have no idea what I'm talking about. So I'm asking, where's my daughter, because if one hair on that Kitten's head is so much as..."

Sheridan was nodding firmly as he rose his link to his mouth.

"Mr. Allen," he said. "Come in please."

"Here, Captain," the voice on the other end said. "What can I do for you?"

"Did you take one Shanti Vincent into custody earlier?" the captain asked.

"Into custody, no," Allen said. "I asked G'Kar to watch her for us, since he'd seemed willing to."

Garibaldi watched the two Vincents as Sheridan conversed with Zack. He kept his expression rather neutral and uninterested to avoid giving the impression that he was watching them and the teenager failed to see through the mask.

Vivi tugged on her foster-mother's arm lightly but insistently, getting her attention. The angry woman, in full mother-lion with cubs mode, turned to look at the girl with a snapping motion and the glare of a scared parent. The look softened as the girl whispered something and looked toward the man on the bed who had, until recently, been in a coma.

It took a moment, he'd never been the best at lip-reading, but the look on Rally's face as she looked up toward Garibaldi answered it for him. It was the look he had when he'd realized something that should have been dead obvious from the get go.

"That's him," the girl had whispered.

"G'Kar?" Sheridan said, surprised. "The Narn Ambassador?"

"Yeah, well, he witnessed the attack," Zack said, drawing Rally's face back up in another snap. "Said the girl was defending herself, so I asked if he'd watch her what with everything else going on."

"I see," Sheridan said with an impatient sigh. "Next time make sure someone has that information to give to the parent."

"Yeah, will do, Captain," Allen's chagrined voice said over the link.

"Ms. Vincent," Sheridan said. "I'll take you to your daughter."

"What did he say about an attack?" Rally demanded as they left the room.

"So, what did you do next?" Shanti asked eagerly.

"Well, I must admit," G'Kar said. "That it wasn't easy, the Centauri ambush was very well planned. Bloody murderers they might be, but I must admit they are very thorough in their plans. But we did manage to pilot through a small asteroid field before escaping into a jump gate."

"Wow," Shanti said. "Just like Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon!"

"Who is this?" G'Kar asked.

"There you are!" Rally snapped as she came into the restaurant and saw Shanti sitting in front of one of several empty plates. "What's going on?"

G'Kar looked toward the dusky woman coming in through the door and looked between Rally and Shanti before turning toward the teenager. He remembered her saying that her mother was dead, but still...

"This is Rally?" he asked.

"She's my foster-mother," Shanti said, nodding. "Rally, this is G'Kar. He fought in a war just like you did."

"You didn't answer my question," Rally said.

"Well, I believe there should be no problem," G'Kar noted. "The men responsible are in the brig by now, I assume."

Rally looked over at G'Kar and looked him up and down cautiously as Sheridan came in the door behind them.

The Narn looked up at that, wondering if something had happened requiring the Advisory Counsel's attention, but then saw that Sheridan was watching the two women as well. And then a third Vincent, he could tell from her resemblance to the other sister, came in beside him.

"I'm sorry to bother you with this, G'Kar," the Captain said. "I'll try to remind security that Ambassadors are not babysitters from now on."

"Oh, I'm not so sure that babysitting is an inaccurate description of what we do here," G'Kar said. "In any case, I find Miss Vincent to be a very engaging child and a most eager listener. Most seem to be rather bored when I discuss the old days of blood and glory."

"She's been asking you about war stories?" Rally said, looking over at Shanti who looked embarrassed.

"Indeed," G'Kar said. "I assume that Mr. Allen has filled you in on the situation?"

"Assume he didn't," Rally muttered. "At least not coherently."

"Ah, then it is my wonderful privilege to be able to report to you the effectiveness with which your daughter here broke the arm of one of her attackers," G'Kar said in a flattering tone. "Most impressive training for anyone of her age, I must applaud you as a teacher."

Rally colored as Sheridan arched an eyebrow.

Some hours later, G'Kar's good mood was destroyed by the horrible realization that the Ancient Enemy had spies amongst them already. The cruiser the Narn homeworld had sent had been destroyed immediately out of hyperspace, and the only way that could have happened was if someone had warned the enemy that they were coming.

That meant that someone had to know about the mission.

His despair appeared to be a mystery to the others, though he suspected at least one of them probably knew more than they were saying. Either that, or the leak was amongst his own people. He was no longer sure of anything given the involvement of these Shadows.

He looked up as Lennier announced that Delenn was ready to return to them, curious as to what had become of her. As she walked in, he was not the only one floored by the change the Minbari woman had undergone.

Sheridan was staring with his mouth hanging open.

G'Kar's despair was momentarily lightened as he recognized the symptoms almost immediately.

At least someone had a cause for happiness in this time of coming darkness.


	3. The Geometry of Shadows

"I've got the file," Susan said. "And I think we've got a problem. Ms Vincent is a diplomatic nightmare just waiting to happen."

"How bad?" Sheridan asked.

"Sixty-seven confirmed kills across three separate ground campaigns," the Lieutenant Commander said. "Including a lot of command staff officers and two Alyts. They had an Alyt assigned solely to tracking down and killing her. The Minbari call her 'Stalking Cat' she has something similar to your fanclub, with the added bonus that she'd be considered an assassin by our own people."

"Well, the Minbari certainly know she's here," Sheridan said. "And we've only heard rumblings. That'll get worse when word gets to their government in general, more than just someone we suspect to be Grey Counsel."

"I'd say to try to keep it to yourself if we didn't already know that they know," Ivanova said. "In this case..."

"I'll go to Ambassador Delenn and handle it," Sheridan said. "In the mean time, I have something else in mind for you."

"Sir?" Ivanova asked.

"Remember that report you gave me on the Drazi situation?" Sheridan said.

"Well, yes," Ivanova said. "They've been a worsening nuisance for a couple of days now."

"I want you to resolve the issue," Sheridan said. "I think it's time for you to learn the fine art of diplomacy."

"Sir?" she said.

"It is time you took on the responsibilities that come with your promotion," Sheridan noted.

"But sir, I...promotion?" she asked.

"Yes, I just finished putting the paperwork through," Sheridan noted. "_Commander_ Susan Ivanova."

"Commander?" Susan spluttered.

"Yes," Sheridan said with a smile. "And now if you can handle some of the smaller diplomatic concerns and leave be free to handle the larger concerns..."

"Oh, right! Yes, of course, sir!" Susan said crisply as Sheridan left the room.

Her smile lasted until she considered the "Drazi situation": every Drazi in the station had split into two groups and were regularly beating the hell out of each other to determine a superior side.

* * *

Garibaldi sat quietly in his room thinking things through.

That girl, Vivian, had recognized him. In and of itself this wasn't much, but Ms Vincent had said something about a "rat" in the bowels of the ship. And he'd heard of Rally Vincent during the Earth-Minbari war.

She'd been sort of a gropos legend after a few of her escapades, stuff that was supposed to be classified but ended up common rumor and gossip anyway. He'd run across her name more than once as a Mars cop too.

Everybody thought she was dead at the end until she ended up found in a wreck of a pirate ship playing some sort of Centauri board game with a Minbari who'd been likewise stranded.

Now, Rally Vincent had the resources to set up a deep space message burst. She was one of the better known legitimate arms dealers, and had a rep as a bounty hunter and investigator.

Of course, she and her kids hadn't been on the station when he'd been shot, but there was a definite explanation there.

"How could someone see something that happened when they weren't here," he considered quietly. "And what would make them want to go a roundabout way to handle it?"

The answer was very clear and moderately uncomfortable.

"Telepath," he said grimly. "Trying to stay out of Psi-Corp's line of sight."

He stretched and considered things carefully. There was no way he was going to turn a fifteen year old girl over to Psi-Corps. Especially not when they were trying to do the right thing and stop a corrupt cop.

"Guess this is a case of one of those things that I can't tell myself," he said simply.

* * *

Rally frowned as she walked into the clinic and saw the man in charge.

Dr Stephen Franklin, the CMO of the station, was running this free clinic. That made her more than a little...cautious, but what she'd heard said this clinic was a safe place to go to get medical care without getting official reports sent back to the wrong people.

She trusted Becky on this information, especially given what she'd charged for it. So I guess it was a time for a bit of a leap of faith.

The woman looked back toward Shanti and Vivi and nodded.

"Let's try this," she said.

"Are you sure?" Vivi asked with narrowed eyes. "I thought he was in Medlab up above."

"He was," Rally said. "Handle a couple of things, see if you get any flashes. This is supposed to be some sort of telepath underground, so there should be some sign of that."

"Right," Vivian said. "Touchy feely, I go."

"I know you don't like to touch things, Vivi," Rally said, turning toward and cupping a hand over the side of the girl's face. "And I don't like that you need to...but, it doesn't change things."

"Can I do anything?" Shanti asked.

"Try not to break any arms while we're here?" Vivi said in response, driving her sister into a fume.

"Be nice, Little Girl," Rally said playfully before turning toward the clinic and heading forward.

"Okay," Franklin was saying. "This shouldn't be too serious, I'm going to give you an anti-biotic and you'll need to take it for about a week and a half."

Rally waited until the current patient was finished with to introduce herself, watching as Vivi meandered about the room, fiddling with things. The girl flinched a couple of times, but eventually she gave Rally a subtle nod.

"Excuse me," Rally said, stepping forward.

Stephen turned to look at her and blinked.

"Miss Vincent," he said in surprise. "What are you doing down here?"

"My girls and I need a medical check-up," she said firmly.

"You can do that up in medlab," Franklin said suspiciously. "Or are you trying to avoid some payment?"

"No, I'm willing to pay," Rally said. "But, I heard that records were...somewhat less official here."

Franklin crossed his arms and looked around carefully.

"And who told you that?" he asked.

"I have the word from a Dr. Beckett in Proxima III," Rally answered.

"Telepaths?" Franklin asked under his breath.

"It's complicated," Rally said. "But I'd like there to be a limit as to how much information is available with these two."

"All right," Franklin said. "Let's see what we've got."

He turned to the two girls and smiled in a friendly tone.

"So, I'm Dr. Franklin," he said. "And you are?"

"I'm Shanti," the girl with the longer hair said with a bright smile. "That's Vivian over there."

Shanti pointed to Vivian and then shook hands vigorously with Stephen as her sister came over. Vivian waved and held back closer to Rally, putting a stick of gum into her mouth.

* * *

The door alarm beeped innocently as Sheridan arrived at Delenn's quarters in the Green Sector.

"Enter," a calm, friendly voice spoke out.

Delenn turned toward the door and smiled as it opened to reveal Captain Sheridan.

"Captain Sheridan," she said with a slight smile. "This is a pleasant surprise."

"Hello, Ambassador," Sheridan said, trying to avoid staring at the odd image Delenn presented.

Since emerging from her cocoon, Delenn looked much different from any other Minbari that Sheridan had seen. Her long, brown hair hung down from her head. Her bone crest was also significantly different from that of other Minbari, being somewhat smaller and more subdued from what Sheridan could see.

"What brings you to my quarters?" she asked. "Is there an emergency of some sort?"

"Merely a matter of concern that we might want to discuss," Sheridan said. "Would you mind if I come in? This isn't something that should be discussed in an open hallway."

"This sounds serious," Delenn said. "Do come in."

Sheridan stepped in and looked around, expecting to see Lennier somewhere in the room.

"Lennier is attending to other matters," Delenn said, accurately identifying Sheridan's scanning look. "Now what is this 'matter of concern' you spoke of?"

"There's someone on the station that I think you need to know about," Sheridan said. "Now, I don't think there's anything to be immediately concerned about, but I'm afraid her presence may have already been misinterpreted by your government."

"Who is this person?" Delenn asked, frowning slightly.

"A woman named Rally Vincent," Sheridan said, taking a breath to explain further.

"Ahh, Lennier informed me that she was here," Delenn said. "I must admit, that I was indeed most concerned that your government would send such a person here. It speaks of a great deal of distrust."

"We're not sure they did," Sheridan said. "She is here with her family, last time I saw her, she was tearing security a new one for losing one of her daughters for a couple of hours."

"What is this 'tearing a new one'?" Delenn asked momentarily.

"Well, it means..." Sheridan paused. "It means she was extremely angry and being very loud about it."

"Yes, well, I can understand a mother being rightfully incensed when a child is lost," Delenn said, "but it still does not explain what new thing she was tearing for security."

"Uhh...that's probably not an appropriate discussion for...err, mixed company," Sheridan said.

"How is our company 'mixed'?" Delenn asked.

"You don't seem too concerned by this situation," Sheridan said, shifting the subject eagerly.

"Lennier has been keeping a casual watch on the individual in question," the Ambassador explained. "He's witnessed her engage in several business deals, I believe she sells weaponry?"

"She does," Sheridan said. "She has good references in the business. Law enforcement and sportsmen, mostly from the report we have on her. I must say that I'm a bit relieved to find you so reasonable in this matter. The last Minbari that I believe referenced her seemed to think we were setting her in position for a war or something."

"You've spoken to others on this matter?" Delenn asked, turning curious.

"Yes, someone who said he worked with the Ministry of Culture," Sheridan said. "I believe he said that his name was Hedronn."

Delenn flinched almost imperceptibly, though Sheridan noted it.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I hope not, Captain Sheridan," Delenn said. "Your people's assassins killed many of us in the ground wars, and Ms Vincent has the misfortune to be the most easily identified of the group. Her signature of using...slugthrowers, as you call them, stands out."

"She is strange that way," Sheridan said. "Slugthrowers were found to be unreliable sometimes. Differing amounts of gravity made for extreme differences in accuracy from one planet to the next. It would take a genius to be able to adapt practically to the changes."

"And yet, she did not only adapt," Delenn said. "She seems to have used them to her advantage. Some among our Warrior Caste recognize her as a virtuoso of battle, but those are a minority. These weapons inflict brutal injuries, and Miss Vincent is well known to inflict crippling wounds on those she does not kill. What's more, as she is one of the few such people we've identified, she bears the burden for the crimes of many of her occupation."

She couldn't say that she remembered reading the files at the time due to her position as part of the Grey Counsel.

"But you don't think she is an active threat?" Sheridan asked.

"I have not yet met the woman to make a complete judgment," Delenn said. "I have only old files and reports and my aide's observations. The evidence is contradictory at best."

"You plan to meet her," Sheridan noted.

"And her children," Delenn said. "What were your impressions of them?"

"They're an odd bunch," Sheridan said with a laugh. "But very likeable."

"Then I don't suppose you'd mind accompanying me to meet them then?" Delenn said.

"Excuse me?" Sheridan asked.

"Well, I rather feel it inappropriate to interview an Earth citizen alone," Delenn noted. "Since you show such interest in the matter, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind being chaperon."

She finished with a slight, knowing smile.

"Uhhh, well, I suppose so," Sheridan said.

* * *

"Ms Vincent," Stephen said. "I think it would be highly advisable to accept the genetic scan for your girls. There are a lot of effects out there that can damage the genes, especially in space travel, and having a baseline to work with is of utmost importance. I'm surprised any of your previous doctors have let you get away with having them unscanned this long."

"If their genetic codes get to Psi-Corps, then background rads are the least of their worries," Rally noted.

"Psi-Corps is not getting my records," Franklin insisted, firmly. "I've taken precautions to keep all these files out of circulation, and you aren't on some colony now with a planet's EM field to protect you from everything flying around. The station should keep it all out, yes, but there're viruses, drugs and any of a variety of other things that can inflict mutations. If we have a starting model to compare to, we can fix any damage."

"I don't mind getting tested," Vivian said, shrugging.

Rally raised her hand and held it palm out toward Vivian in a gesture to wait.

"Look, if you don't trust me," Franklin said, "why bother coming down here?"

Rally took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes.

"If Psi-Corps comes for us because of you," Rally said without completing the statement.

"Fine," Franklin said. "Whatever you want, now let me do my job."

It was later, as Rally and the girls left, that Franklin held Rally back.

"Just want to make sure," he said in an undertone. "Your records indicate you've used kerasine."

"No," Rally returned quietly. "I've had kerasine used on me, there's a difference."

"I...see," Franklin said. "In any case, you are aware, there's both neurological and genetic damage."

"I know," Rally said. "But the doctors said it wasn't anything that should affect my daily life, and yes, I'm aware of the cancer risk. Anything going on I should know about?"

"No, still stable and benign," Franklin noted. "But, your girls have...they have the same damaged genes."

"They..." Rally froze and narrowed her eyes.

Goldie used kerasine on her own kids...children under five years of age? She felt sick.

"Thank you, Doctor," Rally said coldly. "Rest assured, the source of that isn't around anymore to do it again."

"Make sure to have them checked regularly," Franklin said. "Same issues any mutation or genetic damage. Have to keep watch for development of cancers."

"Right," Rally said. "Thanks again."

* * *

Franklin looked over his findings carefully after the Vincents left. He had a recorder set to take his observations, though these wouldn't be going into his official files. Instead, they'd be secured with the rest of his files on the telepath patients he'd funneled through Babylon 5 over the recent year.

"Shanti Vincent," he said. "Human, female, appears to be Indian-Caucasian ethnicity, telepath unknown rating, age fifteen."

"Skin is hot to the touch, recorded temperature is around one hundred degrees, but reports from her mother say that this is normal for her. She shows no other sign of illness and there is no sign of negative impact on any systems. Higher than normal body temperatures are a normal occurrence, but this is one of the more extreme versions I've run across."

He paused and continued.

"Higher than average traces of both endorphins and adrenaline in her blood stream imply a tendency toward mood swings. There are also a significant number of mitochondria in her system, more than twice the average, this would account for the raised body temperature as it implies a higher metabolism."

"Vivian Vincent," he completed. "Human, Indian-Caucasian ethnicity, female, telepath of unknown rating. Age fifteen."

"Vivian has very quick reflexes," he said. "And she seems sensitive to touch. She is hesitant to handle things or shake hands. This appears to be physiological as a basic biometric scan showed a higher degree of neural activity than normal. I can't say too much more without a more in depth study, and I think I'll wait to speak to Miss Vincent about that. It is not of medical concern and Miss Vincent is a bit...protective of her children."

"Both children have inherited at least some of their mother's damaged genes," Franklin continued. "Miss Vincent seemed surprised and troubled by that."

"Her own response seemed to imply she thought her children may have been exposed to the same chemical she had been," Franklin noted. "Inheritance did not seem to be her first thought."

"In any case, while Miss Vincent's mutation has negligible effects on her," Franklin said. "I wonder if they have more significant effect on her children. Most of the damaged genes are on the telepathic markers. Shanti Vincent inherited seemingly all the damaged markers from Rally and more than enough other markers from her unknown father to indicate an active telepath. Vivian Vincent appears to have more markers than her sister, but has not inherited as many of the damaged markers."

"I have no idea what this might say for their telepathic abilities," Franklin said. "But it seems that Rally Vincent is a carrier for a mutation of the telepathic gene. If so, then I have proceed with everything involving these proceedings with the utmost caution."

* * *

Rally started to fall back behind her girls subtly as her ears caught the characteristic click of heels on metal. This was the very intense negative associated with coming to such places for medical treatment. Such places as Down Below were flooded with scavengers and a few actual predators.

Rally made sure that she was between the stalkers, who were deciding whether or not to approach the thirty-something woman and her two charges. She gave the unseen watchers a bit of something to think about when she lifted up the back of her jacket as if to adjust it and showed the knife against her back as well as a bit of her shoulder holster.

Predictably, the cautious pursuit faded away to nothing and they were soon safely in the middle of the market.

Rally started to breathe easier, glancing forward to see if either of her girls had picked up on the situation, and was partially gratified and partially worried that they seemed more or less unaware.

On the one hand, it was good to know they weren't yet as paranoid as she was. On the other hand, she'd definitely have to teach them to pay attention to their surroundings in such places.

That thought came ironically about the same time as Shanti made an observation.

"Why are the Drazi all wearing those purple and green scarves?" she asked.

Rally glanced around, noticing the level of tension and looks between the Drazi as she remembered what one of her customers had said some time ago. Here they were, small groups of two to four Drazi scattered all over the Bazaar and eyeing any Drazi not wearing their particular color of scarf.

"This sucks," she sighed. "Riot."

The two girls looked at Rally for a moment and then the first Drazi launched at one of his rivals. Both huddled close to Rally, making a tight unit as they started moving cautiously through the erupting chaos.

A Drazi cut ahead of of them trying to push through the three to get at a lump of others past the Vincents. Rally caught his attack and easily shifted him into a tumbling mass out of the way.

A few feet later, a Drazi was sent flying into the side of the Vincents, where Vivi redirected his fall aside, using the same motion to put a sidekick into the pursuing Drazi's belly.

Another pair of Drazi stumbled into Shanti a few seconds later and might have continued on without noticing or causing her too much issue. Though he'd picked the wrong Vincent to antagonize casually.

The fifteen year old took the oblivious Drazi, a civilian with no real training only caught up in the cycle of fighting they were currently in, and pushed her knee forcefully into his back before taking advantage of his now further off-balance stance to slam the reptilian's head into the nearest wall, five feet distant, forcefully.

She might have continued had Rally not stepped in and pushed Shanti further ahead, out of the main area of the ongoing riot.

They were just clearing the area as security swarmed in to take control of the situation.

"Shanti," Rally said with a sigh as they backed into a clear space.

"I know, I know," Shanti said, looking embarrassed. "Don't leave the group and minimal force. I was surprised."

"You're going to be surprised, that's the nature of these things," Rally said shaking her head. "I think you'll be helping me clean guns tonight."

"All right, Rally," Shanti said with a grimace.

Rally turned toward Vivian then, watching as the riot was quickly suppressed.

"Watch those kicks," she said. "This isn't a kung fu vid, keep your feet on the ground unless you've got one opponent and you've got a huge advantage."

"Right," Vivian said, blushing.

"Other than that," Rally said. "No one hurt..."

She glanced at the dizzy Drazi standing up after Shanti's use of him as a battering ram.

"No one's seriously hurt..."

The Drazi fell down again and shook his head before standing back up.

"...that I care about."

The girl gave an abashed and embarrassed smile as she placed her hands behind her back and hunched her shoulders under the lovely synthetic silk blouse she was wearing.

They watched as the security team carried off the Drazi and then started heading up to the Zocolo to do some shopping before heading to their quarters in Brown Sector.

As they turned about, Rally noted a Minbari walking across the scene to where they were. It took her a moment, but she recognized Lennier from their first encounter, and the occasional instance of seeing him around the course of her business.

"Miss Vincent," Lennier said as he reached her. "I was asked to find you."

"Really?" Rally said.

"Yes," Lennier noted as he cautiously took in the two teenagers. "Ambassador Delenn would like the chance to speak to you and your children."

"Really?" Rally said, a bit surprised. "I'm honored, but I'd think you'd want to avoid being seen with me."

"If it would make you more comfortable," Lennier said. "I believe she is arranging for someone from Babylon 5 Command to present as well."

Lennier was surprised when it became clear that all three human females grew more tense at that.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Who would that be?" Rally asked.

"I think she was going to speak to Captain Sheridan," Lennier said.

"Oh," Vivi said, with a clear sigh of relief. "He was cool, but weird, but cool."

Rally looked back toward Vivi.

"Cool?" she asked in a single word.

"Seemed like a nice guy," Vivi said.

"All right, Little Girl," Rally said, patting her on the shoulder gently. "I think we can do that. I'll have to check to see if I have any business first."

"When would you be able to do that?" Lennier asked.

"As soon as we get back to our quarters," Rally said.

"I see, would you mind if I accompany you?" the Minbari aide asked.

Rally thought about it briefly and then nodded. Her paranoia was mostly extended toward humans of late: Psi-Corps, remnants of Goldie's devotees and the like. She'd burned out her anger at the Minbari a year into the war, and nothing had yet occurred to seriously bring it back to life.

Granted, she hadn't been around Minbari for a long while, but she had a few aces up her sleeves to deal with things if Lennier wasn't the decent guy he seemed to be.

Several aces, in fact, at least one literally up her sleeve. Another in her sock. The concealed shoulder holster, of course and against her thigh reachable through a pocket with a hole in it.

All that without including the knife.

"That should be fine," she said, looking to the girls. "Go ahead and get things set up."

"Right, Rally," Shanti said, smiling eagerly.

"And don't forget to get prepped for your chore tonight, Shanti," Rally noted, drawing a flinch from the girl.

Lennier watched them leave and turned toward Rally.

"They do not call you 'mother'?" Lennier asked.

"I'm their Foster-Mother," Rally said. "I adopted them seven years ago."

"Oh, I see," Lennier said, nodding. "How did this come about?"

"I knew their mother," Rally said simply.

"Ah, and you took over after she was unable to, I suppose," Lennier said.

"That's about the size of it," the gunsmith noted as they walked along.

"I've noticed you trained them to fight," Lennier noted.

"I teach them," Rally corrected. "Like my father taught me. Training is just how to do it. Teaching is about why to do it."

"My apologies," Lennier said. "I understand the difference. Your family are traditionally warriors then?"

"I'm not sure you could call it that," Rally said, shrugging. "We've been gunsmiths a long time, that's about it. I was just unlucky enough to live a life that actually needed the skills."

"I believe I heard of a phrase from your planet that seems to fit," Lennier said. "'May you live in interesting times.'"

"That one," Rally said, grimacing in obvious agreement.

It was some minutes later that Rally and Lennier came to the Vincent's quarters. Inside, Lennier found a decently sized set of rooms and saw Vivian reading a book while sitting at a desk. Shanti, meanwhile was kneeling in the floor, surrounded by obvious weaponry and holding a servicing kit as she was vigorously using a cloth to clean a large metal gun such as Lennier had not seen used before.

Shanti had changed to an old t-shirt and cotton skirt that was covered in oil stains.

"You're doing it wrong," Vivian said as she continued to read, and then looked up to see Rally and Lennier in the room.

"Shanti," Rally said. "Stop for a moment."

"Told you," Vivi said.

"But, Rally," Shanti protested. "They already pretty clean."

"Give me a moment, Mr. Lennier," Rally said.

"Of course," Lennier said, bowing as Rally moved to kneel down next to Shanti.

"Take a deep breath," Rally instructed, closing her eyes and inhaling before looking to her foster-daughter.

After a moment, Shanti humphed and then took a breath herself, rather perfunctorily.

"Shanti, any idiot can wipe a cloth over a gun," Rally said. "To properly clean and maintain one, you need to pay attention. You like shooting them so much, you have to respect them and maintain them. These are old weapons and not many people know how to keep care of them or make the ammo anymore. You have to be careful with them. Now, with me."

Rally took in a deep breath and waited for Shanti to do likewise.

"Take the weapon," Rally said and watched as Shanti leaned forward.

The teen took up the hand gun in front of her, much more respectfully than she had been doing.

"Remove the clip, check the chamber," Rally instructed from beside Shanti, watching as the girl did so. "A gun is always loaded until you have cleared it each time you take it."

The "clip" was an empty container that Lennier assumed normally held the metal slugs that Rally Vincent's weapons were known to use. The chamber was likewise empty.

"Break it down," Rally said. "Set down the pieces on the towel, barrel, stock, firing pin, so on."

Shanti quietly and calmly, breathing evenly, did as she was instructed.

"Now, clean each component thoroughly and put it back together," Rally said. "Take your time and do it right, I'll help you in a minute."

"Right, Rally," Shanti said, bending to cleaning the gun in her hand much more attentively than she had been.

Lennier noted the rather meditative nature of the task with interest, whatever Miss Vincent had said, she was certainly a warrior above and beyond just a simple soldier or even an assassin. There was a spiritual element to her practice, even if there was nothing overtly religious about it.

Vivian, the human with the shorter hair, watched Lennier the whole time over the top of her book. He hadn't failed to notice that, but it seemed to be more of the look of innocent, childish curiosity than anything else.

"All right," Rally said as she moved to her desk to look over her itinerary. "Let's see when I'm free."

* * *

"Right, fine," Rally said to the vid-link. "We'll be right there."

The security officer disappeared from the vid-screen as Rally muttered about a lost day of business.

"I'll get the sundress," Shanti said with a smile.

Vivian looked up and watched her sister move into their room to go through her exhaustive collection of clothes.

"Shouldn't we be worried that she had clothes picked out to make her look 'innocent and harmless' for these things?" she asked.

Rally didn't react to that joke as she usually did, instead giving Shanti a serious look before responding.

"Only if she goes out looking for these things," Rally said finally. "Anyway, we'll be gone for a while, take care of yourself. You know the deal."

"Yeah," Vivi said. "I might go shopping or see if there are any races on at the Dugout."

"Try to stay away from public places until this Drazi thing is taken care of," Rally said.

"I'll try," Vivi said casually.

* * *

It wasn't long afterward that found Vivi buying a pack of gum in the market of Red Sector as she started to wander towards the Dugout. She plopped one of the sticks of gum into her mouth and started chewing.

Vivi stopped as she watched a number of people in distinctive black clothing passing through the market on the way to Brown Sector past her. She stepped aside as they passed her, curious as to who exactly they might be.

As they moved past, one brushed accidentally against her, and reflexively closed her hand around their arm for just a brief moment.

Usually, she didn't get much of a reading from people, though she still preferred not to touch. However, she could immediately tell that there objects that she could read off within the dark-suited men and women.

A flood of images pushed through her mind until she broke off and stepped away, breathing heavily as several people turned to look at her, confused. Among them were two of the black-robed men.

One of the primary images she'd run across was that of several alien...things performing surgery on the man whose arm she had clutched.

Cybernetics and prosthetics. Some close to the skin, it was the only explanation she had for such a burst of imagery.

"Excuse me, Miss," the technomage said with a simple and polite tone of voice before starting to turn away.

"What are the Shadows," she asked reflexively.

She could never help herself from asking at least one question to clarify what she'd just seen. No matter how much it made her stand out.

Every Technomage within earshot of her quiet question paused and turned to face her.

"Curious," a female technomage said with an arched eyebrow.

Then the lot of them simply turned away and continued walking toward Brown Sector.

Vivi looked around at the technomages as they walked past her, watching her carefully.

"The hell was that all about?" Vivian asked as the group finally left.

She moved carefully out of the area and moved to enter the Dugout, hoping to forget the encounter, and the somewhat horrific images she'd caught from the man, with a few hours of NASCAR.

"Ah, good morning, Vivi," one of the waiters said, recognizing her. "Where's Rally?"

"She's having to clean up a mess right now," Vivi said. "Can I have a soda?"

"Certainly, be right back," the waiter said with a smile.

Vivian turned to watch the TV and then frowned as she felt someone sit down, uninvited at the table with her.

"Good morning," a strangely accented voice said.

Vivian turned to see a middle-aged Centauri looking at her with an appraising set of eyes.

"Umm, morning," Vivian said. "Who are you?"

"My name is Londo Mollari," the Centauri said with an engaging smile. "That was an interesting bit of business with the technomages outside."

"Technomages?" Vivi asked before realizing what he was talking about. "You mean the people in black?"

"Yes, that would be them," Londo said, nodding. "A most infuriating people. I've been trying to arrange a meeting with them since they started coming aboard yesterday and all I've received is abuse. You whisper something and suddenly a number of them are giving you a very close inspection. I find this very interesting, don't you?"

"Not really," Vivi said. "I just asked a simple question."

"Interesting, again," Londo said. "Perhaps you might enlighten me as to what this question was, yes?"

"I asked them what the 'Shadows' are," Vivi said. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Shadows?" Londo responded. "I tend not to worry about shadows unless there are people with knives hiding in them. I wonder what interests the Technomages have in such a mundane and boring subject. Perhaps they have a secret interest in shadow puppetry that we'd never heard of before."

He took a deep breath.

"I can just see it now," Londo continued. "Two mysterious and powerful technomages dressed in concealing black clothing to hide them from the audience as they manipulate a jumble of wooden toys on strings re-enacting some bizarrely low brow comedy routine involving much use of profane and childish language."

Vivian laughed at the way the alien was carrying on.

"So, what prompted you to ask about Shadows anyway?" Londo asked. "Unless you have some secret interest in shadow puppetry as well."

"No," Vivi said, turning nervous as the questions turned a bit more probing.

She looked up as the waiter brought her a glass of soda and tried to look away from the Centauri and his bizarre way of bringing down defenses.

"No? No what?" Londo asked. "Where I come from, it is polite for a child to respond to her elders. What prompted you to ask such a question?"

"I guess I just thought I heard one of them talk about shadows," Vivi said without turning to look at Londo.

"Indeed, it would fit their overdramatic sense of style," Londo said with a sigh. "Curious that they would have an interest in you, still. What did you say your name was?"

"I...didn't," Vivi said, nervously.

"Yes, I don't believe you did," Londo said with a smile as he stood up. "Well, feel free to pique my interest again sometime, but I must be off. Ambassadorial duties and such. Someone has to tell the League of Non-Aligned Worlds that their sense of fashion is terribly out of date."

That made Vivian laugh again as Londo walked out of the room.

* * *

Garibaldi would have normally left this sort of complaint to someone else, but when he'd heard the circumstances, he just had to see for himself.

Besides, he was still on medical leave technically.

The situation just proved too tempting to just leave it to Zack and Lou to tell him about what happened later.

On one side, there was a drazi who, if standing, would have been about six feet tall and who probably weighed over two hundred pounds with a thick covering of hard, protective scales and a thick wrapping of bandages around his head.

On the other there was a fifteen year old girl in a sundress who looked rather embarrassed and respectfully nervous. Garibaldi could see through that to see that she didn't really expect to get in trouble for this. Said girl was a shade over five feet tall and probably didn't way much over a hundred pounds...if that.

The girl's mother was a bit taller and had the sort of muscle one saw on veterans who stayed in shape and in practice. And again, he knew Rally Vincent's reputations. In fact, he had been fairly certain that Rally was the person who had actually made the supposed assault and he'd been planning on using this as an opportunity to see the woman in action.

"Let me get this straight," Garibaldi said. "You had your ass kicked...by her."

The Drazi fumbled about a bit self-consciously.

"Yes," he said.

"She's half...less than half your size," Garibaldi noted, trying to unsuccessfully hold back a laugh.

"Yes," the drazi said.

"Are you sure you didn't just slip and fall?" Garibaldi asked.

"No, didn't just slip and fall," the drazi said. "Security cameras show...look."

He passed over a data crystal which Garibaldi took and put into a receiver. Pretty soon a segment of video was playing on the monitors showing a riot in full swing and the drazi plaintiff charging forward to almost knock over Shanti.

This was followed by the fifteen year old girl's beatdown of the drazi which only stopped short because her mother pulled her off.

"Wait a minute," Garibaldi said. "Let me see that again."

He rewound the playback to the point that the drazi struck Shanti and watched her beat him down again.

"No, no, this can't be right," the Security Chief said, rewinding the playback so that it ran through again. "I really just can't wrap my head around this."

And he replayed it again as the drazi squirmed.

"Wow, I guess you really were beat up by a little girl," Garibaldi noted.

A little girl trained in the Marine Corps martial arts, he noted to himself. And one with a serious amount of adrenaline going given what she apparently did even with that training.

"That looks like it hurt," Garibaldi noted with a stage wince.

"What?" the Drazi asked.

Garibaldi rewound the playback to where the drazi was slammed head first into a wall.

"That," Garibaldi said, pushing a few buttons so that the last two to three seconds of the fight was set on a replay loop. "Man, that hurts just watching that. You must get nightmares every time you see a girl."

Garibaldi turned about as the drazi was, ad infinitum, slamming into a wall and falling to the ground and looked to the people involved in the matter.

"Now, the way I see this," said. "And keep in mind that I'm not currently Security Chief so this is just friendly advice. You can press these charges, get the evidence stacked on for rioting and assault against you and prove self-defense for the girl. Not to mention having this video played publicly for court who knows how many times."

He jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder.

"Or you can let this pass and go finish playing Purple vs Green," Garibaldi finished pointedly.

The drazi looked uncomfortable and Garibaldi turned to look at the video again.

"Oh!" he said. "And down you go, wow, just like a rag doll. I just can't get over that."

Shanti was having a real trouble trying to keep a smile off of her face and even Rally's mouth was quirking slightly.

"I think this will be let pass," the drazi said finally. "I go now."

"Yeah, you do that," Garibaldi said turning about to watch the drazi go as he looked over toward Shanti and Rally.

He waited for the drazi to leave before continuing.

"You...have a temper," he noted, pointing toward Shanti. "To put it mildly. It takes a lot of effort to break a drazi skull, believe me. And normally that's not something a fifteen year old could do."

Shanti flinched and her face paled slightly, clearly it was something she worried about herself.

"We've been dealing with it," Rally told him. "And it was self-defense."

"Yeah, she broke a guy's arm a few weeks back," Garibaldi noted. "She needs to check herself or else security is going to start overlooking her age and the cute sundress."

"But you're security," Shanti said.

"Who me?" Garibaldi said. "I'm just some guy that woke up in the hospital a little bit ago. Trust me on this one, security is not going to hear a word of this from me. Besides, I don't think I'm even cleared for that sort of thing."

"But...aren't you in charge of clearing people?" Shanti asked.

"Would you clear me to look at security files?" Garibaldi asked.

Shanti opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"Thanks for the advice, Mr. Garibaldi," Rally said, smirking as she stood up and gestured for Shanti to leave ahead of her.

"Oh, Miss Vincent," Garibaldi said as she reached the door. "You're a big name bounty hunter, you don't happen to know any computer hackers, do you?"

"Right," Rally said. "What do you need a hacker for?"

"Oh, sometimes I just like it if my files are a little bit harder to get into than usual," he said. "I'd check your file for known acquaintances, but...I'm not cleared for that. Which of course means, I'm not cleared to make any reports on you."

He smiled at her and waved.

"Smug jerk, aren't you?" Rally asked with a smirk before leaving the room.

"Smug," Garibaldi said wonderingly to the empty room. "Am I smug?"

He turned around to look at the looping video and winced again at the impact against the wall.

"And man that guy seems made to fall down," he said shaking his head.

* * *

Delenn held in the hallway as she heard voices around the corner near her quarters.

"What is Delenn trying to do, Lennier?" someone asked. "What are you two up to?"

"We're trying to ascertain the nature of Miss Vincent's presence here on the station," Lennier said.

"Her presence?" the other voice said. "The nature of her presence is obvious to anybody with a mind. She's an assassin. She's here to kill people. To kill Minbari."

"I've seen no evidence of this," Lennier said. "She's been perfectly sociable as far as I've seen."

"First Starkiller, and now that Stalking Cat," the other said. "And she's playing nice to both of them. She claims to be acting as a bridge between us and the humans. Does she intend for that to be a bridge of invasion?"

"Enough," Delenn said rounding the corner. "You have said enough. You speak of killing and blood spilt. This woman killed dozens of our people, but some of our people killed hundreds of hers. Blood feuds such as this never end if they are not brought to an end."

"She killed dozens of my people," the Minbari said. "I'm not sure those are your people. And there are ways to end a blood feud."

Delenn closed her mouth tightly and let her chin tremble emotionally before she swept aside and entered her quarters.

"It would be best now if you were to leave," Lennier said firmly but politely.

"This isn't finished," the man said.

* * *

Ivanova was limping along the corridor of Blue Sector, heading out of the command offices to head to the next meeting to figure out what to do about this Drazi thing. She never liked crutches, they never seemed to be built for a proper height. It was as if the manufacturers assumed that the world was populated by giants or something.

In any case they were very awkward to move around in.

"We're going to have to be a bit careful," a voice said in hall ahead of her. "Until this drazi mess is over."

"Does that mean no more arcade?" a girl's voice asked nervously. "I promise not to get angry next time there's a riot. I'll just stay out of the way and not hurt anybody."

Susan arched an eyebrow as she came around a corner and saw Rally Vincent and one of her daughters walking through the halls. She'd heard something about a drazi complaining about assault by a human. She'd even seen the drazi in question.

"Hold it right there," she said, calling the two to a stop as she hobbled over to them.

Rally cautiously turned around to face the sound of Susan's voice and the small Russian woman noted the way a hand drifted instinctively toward where Rally assumed there'd be a weapon. A smirk came over her face.

The girl with the long hair and the sundress, Shanti, apparently, also turned around and that's where she lost her control and burst out laughing loudly. She continued laughing until she rocked painfully on her broken leg and quieted down.

"Oh God, that hurt," she said, still laughing. "Man, I needed that. Well, do me a favor and move out of the way. Taking a lot of room here today, clear aside, thank you."

And with that, she pushed her way through the two confused Vincents and shuffled her way down the hallway, stopping an intersection and then turning laboriously to the right.

"Rally, what was that?" Shanti asked.

"A scary, random woman," Rally said, shaking her head. "Let's go get your sister."

Further down the hallway, Susan stopped as her link buzzed and irritably lifted her hand up to tap it.

"What is it?" she asked.

"There's news from the Drazi homeworld," the voice on the other end said.

"Oh please tell me this nightmare is over," she said hopefully.

"Sorry, Commander," the other man said. "It's getting worse, the ante's been upped. They're starting to kill each other over there now."

"Damn it," Ivanova snapped. "Have the Drazi here heard about this yet? Get a team to the council room right away, full gear."

By the time she reached the council room, some minutes later, limping as fast as she could, it was clear that the security team had gotten there late.

The room was full of dead Drazi wearing purple sashes.

* * *

Elric watched as Captain Sheridan walked away after their parting and smiled in a bittersweet manner. Sheridan was a good man with a powerful heart. The folds of destiny wrapped around him with all that entailed, both the great and the tragic.

Which left him with only one more task to attend to before they moved on past this station out into the unknown. And really, that task was only one of personal curiosity and a sense of responsibility.

The girl in question wasn't difficult to find, all it took was a simple holodemon to quietly infest the security feeds and report her presence back to him. And then it was just a matter of waiting for her to be present with her guardian.

It wasn't long before he was standing outside a door in Brown Sector and pressing the button to alert the people inside. When it opened, he found himself facing a woman in her thirties and holding herself rather cautiously.

"What's your question?" the woman asked.

"Ah, now there's a question I haven't heard before," Elric said. "Excuse me, Miss Vincent, I believe one of your daughters had a brief interaction with some of my people that I think needs to be discussed."

The woman looked back over her shoulder.

"Little Girl," she asked. "Do maybe know what he's talking about?"

It was a prudent thing to do, to use a nickname that would be difficult to track rather than a proper name.

The girl in question, slender build, short dark hair and dusky skin as had been indicated by the communications from his peers, walked into view.

"You're with those technomage people," she said curiously. "You didn't answer my question."

"Well," Elric said. "You asked a dangerous question in broad public. I would have been disappointed if any of my people continued that conversation."

"I think you should come in," Rally said grimly as she looked toward her daughter.

"I think so as well," Elric said with a calm smile as the woman stepped aside and let him in.

She moved like a masterful warrior and Elric did not fail to notice that as he swished into the room and the door closed behind him. Most people in the woman's situation would have started taking a posture of confidence and strength at closing a stranger in. This one remained cautious as she turned to face him, perhaps sensing that he did not feel ill at ease himself.

There was another girl in the rooms, one who looked very similar to the other, but with longer hair and almost brimming with heat even when she was at rest.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Another important question," the technomage said casually. "But perhaps another one is best suited to this situation. Why am I here? And the answer is to suggest a warning."

He looked over toward Vivian.

"Uh huh," the woman said, frowning. "What was the question you asked, Little Girl?"

"I asked about Shadows," Vivian said.

"That doesn't sound like something general," the mother said, stepping forward.

"I probably shouldn't say anything, but it is apparent that your daughter has already...seen more than is good for her to know," Elric said.

"She has a good imagination," Rally said.

"Indeed," Elric said. "But what she asked my people is not something she should be asking out loud. Already she has been heard by someone with dark alliances. This individual doesn't yet know enough to understand the significance of what he knows, but if he mentions it off hand to the wrong people then you will be having other visitors."

"What kind of visitors," Rally asked.

"I can't say for sure but the agents will be pleasant, they'll come in much less dramatic attire than I'm wearing," Elric noted, gesturing to his robes. "They'll smile and they'll ask you that second important question you asked me once I came into your home."

"They'll ask what I want?" Rally repeated.

"And if they like your answer, they'll try to give it to you," Elric noted.

"For a price," the bounty hunter reasoned.

"The people in question prefer the situations to make their own price," the technomage said. "Regardless, now is not the time to be discussing them. Soon, you'll be discussing little else, and when that comes they will have other things to concern themselves. Right now they are mostly concerned that people should not be talking about them at all."

"Forgive me if that sounds a bit like a wild conspiracy theory," Rally said, and she looked toward her short-haired daughter.

"I...saw something, R..." the girl stopped short of naming her mother and the technomage smiled again. "I saw something."

"You should probably be one who's a bit familiar with conspiracy, Ms Vincent," Elric said. "My people and I are leaving this place, we won't be here for the legends to come. That's something for the people here to handle. But until that time, I do wish to warn again."

He turned to look at Vivian again, face serious and grave.

"Do not speak of these things you see on a whim," he said. "I can tell that secrets somehow fall in your hands like leaves from a tree. It is a wonderful gift, but the times are dangerous for those with wonderful gifts."

"I'm not tel..." the girl started to say when both Rally and Elric gestured for her to stop.

"I think your mother has taught you better than that," Elric said. "I'll go now, I hope you've taken my warning to heart, but I rather guess some mistake will be made anyway. Be hopeful. Continue dreaming and share those those dreams with others if you can. A good heart is truly the most wonderful gift you can have."

He looked between all three of the Vincents and smiled.

"And there are many good hearts here in this station," he continued. "But, there are dark ones as well, so dream and share, but be careful and discrete about it."

"What no comment about meddling with wizards?" Vivian asked.

"It seems pointless to give such advice to people who might very well be counted among that group," Elric said finally as he stood up and walked toward the door.

"Ms Vincent and daughters," he said. "I hope you are blessed in the times to come."

"Yeah," Rally said narrowly. "Thanks for the heads up."

"Oh, in answer to your first request," Elric said as the door opened. "My favorite question has always been 'where are you going?'"

Then technomage then walked out of the room and down the hallway.

"Why do we get all the weird people?" Shanti asked.

* * *

All three of the Vincents made there way up through the station, making for Green Sector in an assortment of evening wear.

Rally herself wore the same sort of tasteful and conservative outfit she would wear to court or meeting a client for the first time. A long brown skirt with a white blouse and a good brown jacket. A simple tie hung down between her breasts, effectively concealing her cleavage so that attention was more brought to her overall business-like appearance rather than her gender or physical beauty.

Vivian wore a nice pair of black slacks with a blue knit shirt and a white, three-button vest. A pair of clipped on ear rings, silver bars about three inches long, were hanging from her lobes, though it was clear that she wasn't accustomed to such things as she kept reaching up to scratch at where they were clipped on. She was wearing a soft pair of silk gloves as well.

Shanti was the only one of the three wearing high heels, making her appear about four inches talling than her sister and getting closer to Rally's height. She was wearing a simple green one piece dress over which she had a sort of silver half blouse with long sleeves, that Rally was giving evil looks due to emphasizing Shanti's developing chest.

All three wore a bit of make-up, Vivian wore the least while Rally simply had applied what was appropriate to visiting an invitation like this. Make-up may not have been something she enjoyed wearing often, but it was expected of a professional woman in modest amount. Shanti, on the other hand, while she hadn't gone past tasteful, certainly stood out with the forest green lipstick and eye shadow in a lighter shade of green.

So far, Rally had put her foot down on hair dyes, but eventually, Shanti was hoping to get some green highlights.

Rally stopped them a little ways away from the quarters they were seeking.

"Everybody ready?" she asked.

"Yes, Rally," Shanti said with a cheerful smile on her face.

"As ready as I can be," Vivian said, still lingering on what the man they'd spoken to earlier had said.

"Please try not to ask about the war, Kitten," Rally said.

"Aww," the lovely girl in her green dress protested. "What if they start talking about it?"

"I don't know that it'll come up," Rally said with a frown.

Rally was sure it would probably come up, actually. She just was rather hoping it wouldn't.

"What kind of food will it be?" Vivian asked curiously, tugging on her gloves.

Vivian didn't like gloves as a rule, preferred not to wear them. These were hers and not often worn, made by machine and nothing emotional or traumatic had occurred around them yet. That meant she only ever got faint images from them, mostly of her own past. But at least they acted as a buffer against accidentally picking something up.

"Not sure," Rally said. "Just follow their lead, and wait before eating anything, all right, Kitten?"

"Hmm?" Shanti asked, blinking.

Rally ignored the feigned innocence for the moment and walked the rest of the way to the door and pressed the call button.

After a moment, the door opened to Lennier's pleasant face.

"Nie'se schlect sim'wa," Rally said slowly and carefully as she bowed slightly.

"Nie'se schlect sim'wa," Lennier returned. "You're Minbari sounds a bit better this time."

"I was a bit rusty," the bounty-hunter said. "Still not sure you could call me fluent though."

She looked to her daughters then.

"Good to see you," Vivian said politely with her own slight bow.

"Heya!" Shanti said with a small, friendly wave.

"If you will please come in," Lennier said. "Captain Sheridan is already here."

Rally gestured for her girls to move on ahead of her watching ahead of them cautiously, but not obviously. She kept a polite smile on her face.

There was a small table inside with seven seats prepared. Ambassador Delenn and Captain Sheridan were standing aside as they came in chatting politely until they saw the Vincents.

"Welcome to my quarters," Delenn said in a lilting tone. "I hope this will be a pleasant time for us all."

Vivian stopped short as she took in Delenn's appearance. The Minbari woman might have commented except that Shanti stepped past and cheerfully waved to introduce herself.

"Hi, I'm Shanti," she said with a broad smile.

Rally also noticed Vivian's sudden shift, but made no comment or sign save to glance at her briefly before stepping forward to Shanti's side and bowing politely, if somewhat stiffly.

"It's an honor to be invited here," she said briefly in Minbari before switching back to English. "This is my other girl, Vivian, she's a bit more shy than Shanti is."

With a smile she calmly encouraged Vivian to step forward and introduce herself.

"Umm, hello," Vivian said. "Miss, Ma'am...Lady? Uh.."

"Delenn will do fine," the Minbari woman said.

"I'm glad you girls can make it," Sheridan said in a straightforward accepting manner. "Ambassador Delenn was looking forward to getting to know you."

Rally nodded, noticing Lennier moving in the background. She understood all the meanings of that.

"Well, let's come and sit," Delenn said. "We've prepared a meal in the honor of our guests. I'm afraid there wasn't time to properly prepare flarn. I hope that is all right with you."

"Umm, sure?" Shanti said, a bit lost.

"It'll be fine," Rally said, putting a gentle hand on Shanti's shoulder before they all started to move toward the table.

As they sat, Vivian started to reach out for the eating implements and bowls.

"This is a beautiful set of china," Sheridan said.

"China?" Delenn asked. "Is that not one of your Earth na..oh..I see, the dishes. Yes, they have been in my family for generations and been used to serve honored guests for several hundred years at least."

Vivian's hands stopped short of grabbing anything as she stared in something close to terror or dread.

"Oh don't worry," Delenn said, misreading the girl's hesitation. "They are of very sturdy construction, I can guarantee you. They've survived things much worse than a simple dinner between acquaintances."

And that only made things worse.

"Yeah," Vivian said. "I'm just being a bit careful. I like to have manners."

Across from her Shanti was already holding her eating utensils and eagerly waiting for food. She failed to notice her sister's look.

"I really can't say how surprised I was at this invitation," Rally said as she quietly patted Vivian on the back. "I'm not anybody important."

"Mmhmm," Shanti said then. "I mean, you're Captain Sheridan. You're probably the biggest hero of the whole...oops. I'm sorry, Rally asked me not talk about that stuff."

"That's perfectly all right," Delenn said comfortingly to the now embarrassed teen as Rally visibly winced.

"I've tried to avoid talking about the war with my girls," Rally said eventually. "Too many stories make such things out to be wonderful adventures when they're not wonderful at all."

"I can understand the sentiment," Sheridan said in agreement. "There are a lot of memories that I'd rather keep buried."

As they were talking, Vivi gingerly took up the eating utensils, thankful that the gloves at least partially dulled the shuddering feeling of the memories the antiques had gathered and held for the many years they had been used.

Nothing was very distinct, because she'd deliberately pushed through it as quickly as possible. Not that it wouldn't float up in her dreams later, and be confusing, but at least she didn't have to deal with it right now.

Her shoulders hunched partially and she shivered, trying to keep it unnoticeable.

The distraction of Rally's and Shanti's conversation covered her mostly, but from his seat, Lennier noticed the shivering as the girl took up the utensils, and that the other two were pointedly not paying attention to her. After several seconds, the girl seemed to calm down and take a deep breath, though she still looked a little bit pale.

As conversation continued, some of the food was set aside for the seventh empty seat, something about the return of Valen, which sounded sort of Christian-esque to Vivian.

"I was going to ask the Captain to be present for this meal anyway," Delenn said. "Or at least someone in command, but then I heard that Captain Sheridan was already acquainted with you. I'm curious as to how you met each other. Something about ripping or tearing security a new one?"

Rally flushed a bit in embarrassment at the reminder of that incident.

"Actually I met Vivian first," Sheridan said. "I'd just arrived in the station and misplaced my bag. She'd found it and brought it back to me. I remember because she said something odd right after that."

"What did she say?" Delenn asked, curiously.

"Vivi is always saying weird things," Shanti said casually. "Like 'what's the big deal about guns', or 'what do you mean NASCAR is boring?' and 'why do you wear dresses?'"

"None of that is weird," Vivian said in exasperation.

"Yes, well this was a pretty odd thing," Sheridan noted.

"I warned you that she had something of an imagination," Rally said casually.

"Yeah, but I still wonder what made her say 'I didn't think Minbari grew hair'," Sheridan said with a partial laugh before stopping and looking quickly across at Delenn and seeing that her and Lennier both looked rather surprised. "Oh, sorry, that was a bit thoughtless of me, Delenn, I didn't..."

He paused again and looked over toward Vivian.

"I think I arrived on station several days before you came out of that cocoon," Sheridan said. "How could you have guessed?"

"It's probably just a coincidence," Rally said, waving off the question with a simple shrug.

Unfortunately, the nervous look on her girls' faces was making it hard to keep things looking less than extraordinary. Vivian especially looked something like an animal caught in the headlights of a vehicle.

"I wasn't really thinking of Ambassador Delenn," Vivi said. "I was just trying to imagine a Minbari with hair."

Delenn nodded and shared a look with Lennier and then glanced over toward Sheridan.

"I see, then I do not suppose this needs to be discussed any further," Delenn said firmly. "Don't you think, Captain Sheridan, that this is a simple youthful fantasy and should remain a private issue?"

For the moment, he'd let it slide, but he'd be watching now.

Behind her casual smile, Rally was cursing.

The rest of the dinner went politely, though with a trace of tension.

As the group was breaking up to return to their individual quarters, Sheridan held Rally over a bit in the hallway.

"Look, sorry about that," he said. "The coincidence was just sort of striking. I didn't mean to make you or your girls uncomfortable."

"Yeah," Rally said. "I can see that, and I might just be a little protective of my kids."

"Well, we'll just chalk this up to an over-active imagination," he said.

* * *

"Do humans have seers?" Delenn asked Lennier.

"I do not know," he returned. "I hadn't heard of anything like that. But she was a bit distracted the entire meal."

"Look into it discreetly," Delenn said. "I do not think we'll have an issue with Sheridan reporting this, but I do not think we want a repeat of the human Psi-Corp's last visit here."

"Yes, Ambassador," Lennier said. "Other than that, she still strikes me as perfectly reasonable."

"Myself as well," Delenn said. "Unfortunately, the issue now is making sure the rest of the Minbari population believes it too."

* * *

A day before Rally's dinner with Delenn and Sheridan, in the confusion of one of several Drazi riots, a Mars businessman stepped aside from the open area in order to avoid becoming an accidental participant.

He found himself grabbed from behind and pulled back into a dark part of Red Sector that was rarely seen save by maintenance.

A few minutes later, Jack was going over the documents and contents of the man's pockets and briefcase as the corpse cooled in a cramped shadowy corner of the station.

He found an identity card and a boarding pass for a ship leaving in two days, plenty of time to alter his appearance and the information on the identity card. Then all he had to do was wait for the Drazi to give him another distraction.

* * *

"Are we leaving?" Shanti asked, after the Vincents had come back to their quarters.

"Here's the problem," Rally said. "If we leave, we pretty much confirm there's something to hide. Our names are reported, we have to disappear completely. That means dropping contact with May, Roy, Becky...everybody...and heading to the deep colonies."

"So we're not leaving?" Shanti asked hopefully.

"What all can you tell me about Sheridan?" Rally asked.

"Not much," Vivian said. "I just saw him standing next to that Minbari woman. I think they were...together, you know?"

"That's...encouraging," Rally said. "If he'd be with any other species, much less a Minbari, then he's not the type to be prejudice."

It was also very disturbing since it was looking more and more like Vivian had caught a glimpse of something in the future. Which opened up whole new problems and risks. Seers were heavily looked for, and what Rally knew of the lives of real oracles and seers in the ancient myths, they often ended up killed by someone who didn't like one of their predictions.

Still, she supposed that didn't really change the risk they were involved in, just maybe increased the worth of the prize once they were discovered.

"I guess I'll have to take a closer look at Sheridan tomorrow," Rally muttered.

"Should I go with you?" Vivian asked.

Rally grimaced in the way that the girls accepted as meaning that she was agreeing with them, but not wanting to.

"And I'll..." Shanti started to say.

"Stay here and do some studying," Rally said. "Keep that temper in check and we'll see about going out unaccompanied again."

"All right, Rally," Shanti said with a disappointed sigh.

* * *

Rally and Vincent left their quarters quietly, the older Vincent carrying inside her pockets a lock pick set. She turned back to Shanti then.

"Don't go out or answer the door if you don't have to," Rally reminded her.

"Right, Rally," Shanti said with a sigh and a smile.

"Listen, Kitten," Rally said. "Now's not the time to be trying to guilt trip me, all right?"

"I'll be safe, Rally," the girl said.

"That's what I'm hoping for," Rally said. "Vivian, are you sure about this?"

"Yeah," Vivian said. "This way you don't have to take anything out of the room."

"All right," Rally said darkly. "We're going."

The two women started walking down the hallway toward one of the lifts.

Shanti stayed in the quarters until some time later when she drank the last of her sodas.

* * *

Jack's disguise was fairly flimsy, but with security running pell mell this way and that trying to control the Drazi, he expected to have a clear shot off the station.

He stepped into the hallways of Brown Sector at a quick pace, pausing only to check his shaved head and assorted props for his disguise.

Jack certainly didn't expect to be seeing Garibaldi and Ivanova, the latter on crutches, rushing through the hallways talking about something to do with the Drazi.

"Why don't you have a link?" Ivanova asked.

"I'm till on medi..." Garibaldi stopped, as did Ivanova as they stared across at where Jack stood. "Jack."

And at that point one of the doors between them opened up and a fifteen year old girl walked out with a cutesy wallet.

* * *

Jack sneered and cursed under his breath as Garibaldi tried to reach for what he was sure was a PPG and the long-haired girl, one of the Vincent girls, in the sundress turned to look up at him.

"Ah, what the hell?" Ivanova demanded bitterly.

Jack tossed out the heavy briefcase past Shanti who was moving herself and trying to predict and avoid the line of fire. The briefcase smashed into Ivanova's already broken leg, toppling her painfully to the floor. Her crutches sprawled out, knocking into Garibaldi and sending him off balance. Given that Garibaldi was still recovering from the last time he'd been on the wrong end of Jack's gun, he was distracted from a pain in the back that slowed him down.

As Jack pulled his PPG out and started to level it, he felt a searing pain in his shoulder and almost dropped the weapon before he turned to look at the Vincent girl staring at where his clothes had spontaneously burst into flame and the skin underneath burned through.

Damn, the girl had a weapon somewhere, that made sense.

Jack shifted aside with a darting motion noting with relief that the heat on his shoulder faded fairly quickly. He closed on Shanti who entered a clear stance, her face rather eerily focused on him.

"Hey, kid, duck!" Ivanova shouted through gritted teeth.

A tossed crutch tangled up in Jack's legs sending him sprawling forward. The sudden change in motion broke the focus in Shanti's expression and she scrambled to change her intended action as the fugitive assassin slammed into her.

A PPG blast out of Garibaldi's gun passed through where Jack had been standing and struck the wall.

Even though she was well trained, Shanti was still inexperienced and depended more on raw instinct. Perhaps if Jack had come straight at her as the man intended, things would have been different, but she was slow to recover her center.

Jack, meanwhile, untangled himself and rolled up behind her, placing his PPG to her head and hauling her small form in front of him.

"Damn it, Jack," Garibladi snapped angrily as he straightened himself.

"I don't know what you think you can do, girl," Jack said, "but you're not fast enough. As for you, Michael..."

He grunted in pain as Shanti flung her head back into his face and then an elbow into his chest. Shoving the girl ahead of him and watching her twist about, apparently still intent on fighting, he leveled his weapon.

"Jack don't do it!" Garibaldi shouted.

"Put the weapon down before you go too far," Ivanova was shouting as well, pulling her own weapon.

Three PPGs fired at once, one aiming directly for Shanti, who focused forward intently herself. Halfway between the Vincent girl and Jack, the air exploded in a brilliant white flash as the three PPG bolts came close to intersecting.

All three standing individuals were thrown off their feet, Shanti slamming painfully into wall behind her. Jack was to his feet first and started to run out of the scene when he heard the sound of running feet and shouted orders.

Grabbing a dazed Shanti back to her feet, he was heading down the corridor as Garibaldi and Ivanova found their weapons and security personnel came out of the halls to level weapons at the man, drawn by the sounds of gunfire and fighting.

"Don't let him get away," Garibaldi shouted, chasing after him around a corner.

He caught sight of Jack dragging the Vincent girl around another turn and guessed that Shanti was at least mildly concussed at the moment. Looked like she'd taken that wall face first going by the bloody nose, actually.

"Don't worry about me," Ivanova shouted from back where she'd fallen. "Get that traitor before I put this crutch somewhere you'll need Dr. Franklin to remove it! Now!"

He smirked at the sound, a bit of humor in the serious situation.

Calls were made to cut off Jack from escaping deeper into the station and he heard returns over the various links indicating more security was coming down from other passages.

Unfortunately, Garibaldi saw those reinforcements before he saw Jack. Cursing, he immediately backtracked until he found a maintenance shaft that was unsecured.

"Do you think he went in there, Chief?" one of the security asked.

"Unless he's been taking lessons from the Invisible Man," Garibaldi said. "Yeah, I think he went in there. Get on the link and start locking down the maintenance shafts. I'd like everybody on this, but we also have a group of Drazi intent on mass murder to intercept."

"Does this mean you're back on the job, Chief?" one of the other security staff asked.

"If I say yes, are you going to get started moving already?" Garibaldi demanded, immediately producing a reaction in the security personnel.

* * *

Getting into Blue Sector should have been a little bit more difficult, but Rally found that with the increased patrols in the other parts of the station, meant to control the Drazi, that it was relatively easy to get in the halls unnoticed.

She and Vivian had pulled on some staff overalls, snatched from a laundry some week or so previous just in case they needed to fit in somewhere, and were walking in through the halls, searching for the number of Sheridan's quarters.

"Do we know where we're going?" Vivian asked in a hushed tone as she looked over her shoulder.

"Becky got me information on quarters before we came here," Rally said. "Including where the station commander's quarters were set to be. It's apparently really easy information to get to."

Both stepped aside out of ease view as a pair of security patrol stepped into view, both members of it chatting casually as they moved through.

The two were almost passing when their link buzzed.

"All security personnel begin search of Brown Sector maintenance shafts," the voice said. "Former security officer Jack is loose in the maintenance shafts. Be aware that he has a hostage, one Shanti Vincent."

Rally and Vivian froze where they were for a moment and then, regardless of their appearance rushed past the two security personnel and ran for the lifts they had left not too long ago.

"What the hell happened?" Rally wondered out loud as the lift doors closed behind them, leaving the stunned security personnel with only a brief glimpse of who had been run past them.

They stripped off the worker overalls to reveal their own clothes underneath and stepped off as soon as the door opened on brown sector.

What they found outside their living quarters was a small group of security personnel interviewing or guarding Commander Ivanova who was sitting on the ground with a medic looking over her leg and checking it for new injuries.

"Would someone remind Commander Ivanova," a voice over the links said, "that she needs to come into medlab after rebreaking a leg."

"Someone needs to remind Dr. Franklin who's second in command on this crate," Susan responded irately. "As soon as we find Miss Vincent. Someone has to explain what's going on to her."

Rally came marching up the corridor determinedly at that point with Vivian behind her and looking over the area.

"Then tell me, how is my girl someone's hostage?" she demanded.

Susan grimaced and tried to sit up with out shifting her re-injured leg.

"Sheer bad luck," Susan said. "Garibaldi and I were moving through Brown Sector with this Drazi thing and that bastard was apparently making his move to try and leave the station. We just cross paths."

"And how'd Shanti get involved?" Rally demanded.

"She walked out of your door at just exactly the wrong time," Susan said. "We pushed him into the maintenance shafts, should be able to nail him down pretty soon."

Rally bit her lip, Shanti's reaction to being held prisoner was unpredictable. Even if she was probably disoriented right now, that amount of stress would build and then who knew what would happen.

Probably nothing overly healthy for Shanti.

"Did he drop anything?" Vivian asked.

"What?" Susan asked.

"Susan..." Franklin's voice called out of the link.

"Not now, Doctor," Susan snapped.

"Vivi, Little Girl," Rally said cautiously.

"It's Shanti, Rally," Vivian said.

Reluctantly, the gunsmith nodded and turned back to Susan.

"Did he drop anything?" Rally repeated.

Susan was about to ask why they were asking, but had a feeling herself and nodded cautiously.

"Get me that briefcase and it's contents, then go to the hunt with Garibaldi," she ordered.

"Leave you here alone, Ma'am?" one of the officers asked. "We need to make sure you..."

Susan raised up her crutch and wrapped it hard against the floor.

"Right away, Ma'am," the guard said.

The briefcase that Jack had dropped was soon in Ivanova's hands and the guards were soon walking away at a rush from the scene.

"You too," Ivanova insisted as she pointed to the medic.

Vivian didn't wait for the medic to leave before opening the briefcase and starting to look through the items.

"He's heading to an emergency cache," Vivian muttered as she first touched the briefcase and then started looking through various things. "No, nothing, not enough..."

Rally took items discarded by her daughter and started looking at them a little more carefully herself. She didn't have any psychic ability to see the imprints carried by items, but she could make deductions.

"I'm curious what you expect to find," Ivanova said cautiously.

"Just some clue as to where he's gone to..." Rally started to say.

"This one," Vivian gasped as she shivered visibly while holding an identi-card in her hand.

Susan watched with narrowed eyes as Rally cautiously looked over toward her.

"He killed the owner," Vivi said. "And spent sometime altering it. I don't see any colors on the wall, just metal. There are some pumps or something making noise. There's a number..."

Susan stared at the girl, and nodded, putting some pieces together.

She had read more than a few texts on the matter, and she knew the term psychometry. It wasn't supposed to be possible for thoughts to linger on an item. No one had ever really successfully done it...well at least not until now.

"That's Downbelow," Susan said starting to raise her hand to her link.

"Right," Rally said, starting to stand up and look toward the sections of Brown Sector that were part of the unfinished areas of Downbelow.

Both Susan and Rally were interrupted as Vivian took another item out of the briefcase, a data crystal, and gasped loudly before dropping it as if it had burned her.

"What is it?" Rally asked.

"A psi-cop, he's short and smiles a lot," Vivian said. "And he never opens his left hand. It's a closed fist and he's empty inside."

Susan and Rally both frowned deeply as the implications came in.

"Bloody Psi-Corp," Susan muttered, drawing Rally's eyes. "Go and help find your daughter. This little one can stay here, and I promise she'll be safe."

"Little Girl?" Rally asked, seeing what Vivian thought.

"Umm, do you mind?" Vivian asked, holding out a hand nervously.

"You want proof, yeah, I would too," Susan said, reaching for one of her commander's bars off her shoulder and hesitated just a moment before placing it into Vivian's hand.

Susan had no idea whether her own minor telepathy would be revealed or not, but

The girl shook as she felt the recent spike of intense disgust that Susan had had at the realization that the Psi-Corp was behind Jack, and then she turned to her mother.

"I'll be fine," Vivian said. "She doesn't like Psi-Corps at all."

Rally nodded, giving Susan a warning look.

"If anything happens to her," Rally said.

"Then you can try to kick my ass," Susan agreed.

Rally nodded and then was running down the hall.

Susan's link buzzed again.

"That's it, Commander Ivanova," Franklin said emphatically. "I've waited long enough, you're officially getting ordered back to Medlab. I have a stretcher already being sent your way."

"Oi, doctors," Susan said rolling her eyes.

* * *

Garibaldi listened over the link, someone having brought it out of storage for him, as Susan relayed the information they had.

"Where does the information come from again?" he asked.

"The Vincents," Susan said. "She is a bounty hunter, guess he left behind something we missed."

"Uh huh," Garibaldi said, noting the woman's tone of voice. "All right, anything else I should know?"

"Rally Vin..oww! Damn it Franklin," she snapped. "Give me a moment. Sheesh. Miss Vincent is joining the hunt."

"Okay," Garibaldi said with a frown. "Thanks for the heads up."

He frowned and thought about what he was saying.

"Okay, I want you guys to make a quick try to cut him off," Garibaldi said. "Put five people here in waiting."

He looked around at everybody.

"Understand?" he asked.

"We got it Chief," someone said earnestly. "We've all been itching for a chance to get this bastard in our sights. Everybody knows what you did for him, heck you've done the same for more than half of the officers here. We'll run him down."

"Good to hear," Garibaldi said. "Now, Lou, lead the hunt. Zack, I want you and...say five officers here."

"That's...nowhere near where you're having Lou push, Chief," Zack said, a bit confused.

"And if you had to get away from me Zack, how would you do it?" Garibaldi asked.

"Well," he thought. "I'd find a place to hide to let the pushers past and then cut through..."

He pointed to the map where Garibaldi wanted him and stopped talking for a moment.

"Umm, oh," he said. "I got it chief."

"Good," Garibaldi said. "Now, I'm going to head here with two people."

He indicated the general area that had to hold the scene Ivanova had described.

"Uh, Chief?" Zack asked.

"When you get a chance, Zack," Garibaldi said. "There's this great show called Romance of the Three Kingdoms from the 20th century. Based on some really old book which was based on some wars. You might want to look into seeing what happened to Chow Chow when he was running with his tail between his legs from Red Cliff."

"I think that's 'Cao Cao', Chief," someone said idly.

"Well," Garibaldi said. "It was good show, anyway. So, you've got your orders, let's get to it."

* * *

Vivian sat aside in medlab as Dr. Stephen Franklin worked about looking over Susan's leg, apparently for the second time.

"You're supposed to be resting this thing," Franklin said. "Not trying to film your own action movie."

He frowned and looked over at Vivian.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Garibaldi's aide," Susan said. "He took her sister and went Downbelow."

"Hmm, Garibaldi will find him and get her back," Franklin said in an encouraging tone.

"Rally will find her first," Vivian said.

"Franklin," Susan said before wincing. "IF you're done torturing me, think I can have a word or two alone with the girl?"

Franklin frowned and looked up toward Vivian and then Susan.

"Well, fine, but I'd better not come in here you doing anything stupid," he said cautiously.

Susan waited until the doctor was gone to call Vivian over and talk to her quietly.

"Does Psi-Corps know about you?" she asked dangerously.

"No," Vivian said. "Not until your report goes out anyway."

"That won't come from me," Susan said. "And if I can fix it, it won't come from the Station at all."

"But..." Vivi said confused.

"Psi-Corps legally has authority to police telepaths," Susan said. "You are not a telepath. So there's no need for me to report you."

"Why would you do that?" Vivian asked.

"How long have you been hiding from Psi-Corps?" Susan asked.

Vivian looked around cautiously.

"All my life," she said. "Rally says that they killed our mother. Shanti's and mine."

"Yeah, well that's something we have in common then," Susan noted quietly.

"What do you mean by that?" Vivian asked.

"Psi-Corps learned my mother was a telepath when I was young," Susan said. "Forced her to take pills to suppress their talent. Eventually..."

Susan stopped and frowned deeply, taking a heavy breath before continuing.

"Eventually, she killed herself rather than continue with it," Susan said. "I'm not friendly to the Psi-Corps, and, as I said, you are not a telepath. Very nice that they give us that little loop hole, isn't it?"

"Ummm, yeah, I guess," Vivian said. "So...we won't have to leave then?"

"Well, you just got here, didn't you?" Susan asked, trying to sound encouraging.

* * *

Rally made for Gray Sector quickly enough, but she hadn't been there long enough to familiarize herself with many of the paths and dangers of the Gray Sector. She had the official blue prints, but those were only mildly helpful given that the lower sectors were never completed.

It was a mass of hodge-podged metal and lurker alterations Downbelow. Which meant that the terrain likely changed fairly frequently. Rally had taken quarters on the Brown Sector, in the finished section of that Sector, so that she had easier access to that maze in case of an emergency.

But she hadn't had more than a handful of looks into it so far.

Rally hadn't really expected to need to go into it a mere month into her stay there.

"Hey, girlie where do you think you're going," a voice asked her as she strode through one of several debris formed alleyways.

Rally sighed and looked ahead to see some men forming an impromtu wall of bodies ahead of her and several others slipping in behind. They were clearly making threatening gestures with a number of improvised weapons.

"You look like you have some money," another said. "How about staying for a donation and some fun."

"Tsh, this sucks," she muttered simultaneously to drawing a PPG and firing three times as she continued walking the same way she had been heading.

The first shot destroyed a club in the hands of a man in front of her, the next two were at the feet of the bandits ahead, scattering them away from her.

"People think I'm some sort of ninja or something because I can get in and out of command posts and battlefields," she muttered,

She pointed her gun behind her and fired at the men trying to approach her from behind with only a moderate amount of attention.

"I dare anybody to get completely undetected through a slum," she muttered. "Now that'd be a ninja."

So saying she passed on through as the would be thugs scattered away from her, only one getting close enough for an opportunistic piece of debris to be slammed in his face so that he was clothes-lined painfully to the deck without even so much as altering Rally's stride.

She re-stashed the PPG in her hand and looked to the numbers on the wall, grumbling when she found that she'd overshot her target somewhere in this labyrinth.

Turning around, she walked back through the regrouping set of thugs who scattered like rats as they saw her come back around the corner. The one that she'd clothes-lined was slow to react and found himself pushed against a wall and feeling a knife against his throat.

"I need directions," she said before glancing down and twitching a little. "And then you need to change your clothes."

* * *

Jack froze in place, holding the half conscious girl with him as he listened to security pushing into the maintenance tunnels everywhere they could find them. But they were very obviously pushing him rather than seriously hunting and he found a place where they would pass him by easily enough.

Really, did they forget how often he'd run this same exercise to hunt some fugitive? The only thing making it half difficult was the girl he was saddled with just in case they did catch up with him and he needed some leverage.

"Don't tear my dress," the girl muttered, shaking her head trying to clear it.

"Shut your mouth," Jack said, squeezing hold of Shanti's wrist.

She responded by ripping her other arm around to clip him across the forehead, distracting him enough for her to break free of his grip and then shoving him hard back against the wall with both hands hard enough to just about push the breath out of his lungs.

The smart thing at that point would have been to run away and take several corners until she clear. That's what she'd been taught to do, disorient the enemy and run. Or at least, that's what Rally had so far tried to teach her.

It wasn't her habit to break off once she started, though.

Jack caught her hand in the next attack and twisted her arm about to slam her into the bulkhead, dazing her again.

"Oww!" Shanti shouted as she struggled to free her arm from Jack's grip, just about pulling her own shoulder out of joint to do it.

"Damn you're a vicious one, girl," Jack muttered as he held her and looked about for any sign of security.

His search was interrupted as a fire ripped up amongst the piled debris in the area around the two. He hauled Shanti to her feet and watched as the fire spread to more flammables in the area around them, as if the fire were being drawn in a circle around him.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked, pulling back with his hostage who slumped wearily, as if suddenly tired.

Finding her a bit more docile he backed away from the fires, waving the smoke away with his gun hand and hauling Shanti along with him.

He was out of the area before security started to be drawn to the smoke and fire and a fire suppression crew was called in.

"Let me go," Shanti shouted with a bit of a slur from the concussion.

She instead found herself being gagged after her arms were tied up.

"What's she training you to do?" Jack wondered with a smirk as he re-evaluated Rally Vincent based on this encounter with one of her supposed children.

He was thinking about this when he realized that the area of Downbelow he was in seemed clear of the normal riff-raff. Stopping, he frowned and turned back away.

Garibaldi had outguessed him it seemed and sent men ahead to catch him slipping the net. Too bad for them that the team had spooked the local populace. He was going to have a bit longer of a walk, but he had another way to get to his safe-area and the resources he'd cached there just in case.

He was moving through one of the many alleys of debris and rudimentary shelter when a form stepped out from behind cover and pushed him easily off of his feet to the floor, pulling Shanti off and to the side.

Jack moved to raise his gun up to target the interloper, recognizing Rally Vincent's face. His hand was only partially raised when a blast of fire ripped through it, blast a sizeable hole through the main center of the man's hand. The PPG fell from his practically destroyed hand and was then blasted away with a second shot.

Rally turned to look at her daughter's state of being and Jack took the opportunity to get to his feet and make a break for escape.

He had no question as to whether or not he could take a battle-field hunter killer fully prepared for him and having already taken first blood.

Rally fired another shot as the man turned a corner, grazing a thick line into his thigh and setting him to limping. It would have been easy to run him down from that, but she let him limp off, turning back toward Shanti.

"Are you all right, Kitten?" Rally asked, taking the gag out of Shanti's mouth and using a knife to cut her bonds.

The veteran caught sight of the developing bruise on the teen's head and frowned darkly as she glanced back toward where Jack had already vanished.

"Kitten?" she asked, turning back toward Shanti and brushing her hair back, looking into her face nervously.

"I'm fine," Shanti said shakily, holding onto Rally's arms tightly. "I feel a little sick though."

"Right," Rally said. "Let's get you to the doctor then."

"Rally?" Shanti said nervously. "I burned some stuff."

The bounty hunter stopped and looked uncertainly toward the vanished man.

"Did he know you did it?" she asked.

"I don't think so," the girl said.

"Damn it," Rally muttered. "Well, we might have to be leaving anyway."

"What do you mean?" Shanti asked. "And how'd you find me?"

"Vivian," Rally said. "I couldn't find what she was talking about, but there aren't that many paths to that area from where our quarters are. All it really needed was to watch a choke point."

* * *

Jack limped into his way the rest of the trip into the section of Downbelow that hid his safehouse. A sigh of relief started to work out of his mouth as he walked in to sit down on one of the few seats he'd brought into the area, scrounged from somewhere else.

"Well, it took you long enough," a familiar voice said. "Looks like you took a beating getting here."

Jack turned about to see Garibaldi sitting in one of the more out of the way corners with a PPG in hand. Two other officers stepped out into view on his speaking.

"Hello, Garibaldi," Jack said smugly. "I guess this means that I'm under arrest now.

* * *

"I don't understand you, Jack," Garibaldi said. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have had a place in Security. I supported you, defended you. I trained you and made you my right hand."

"The thing is, Garibaldi," Jack said. "I'm someone else's left hand, and they're the winning side. They're the new order of things, and they don't play by the broken old rules that have kept our people down too long. Think of the big picture Garibaldi, and get out of the way."

Michael stood up and glared, sometime ago, his anger was intense and vocal, but he'd had time to cool down and think about it. He was no less angry, but he wasn't going to be letting it drive him.

"If you say so," Michael said with a smile before raising a salute to his head in mockery of one given him by a particular Psi-Cop the previous year. "Be seeing you."

Jack stopped and stared a bit coldly.

"What the hell do you think you know, Michael," Jack demanded.

"Well, that's for me to know and you to be paranoid about," Garibaldi said before turning to his men. "Let's get him out of here now."

* * *

Secrets were part and parcel of Babylon 5, and Sheridan was beginning to see that as he read over Susan's official report. He'd worked with her before and known her too long not to see when she was holding something back.

"'Information gained from a witness led to discovery of the suspect's whereabouts,'" Sheridan read. "Garibaldi's report reads about the same. Is there anything else not in the report that I should know about?"

"There was a data crystal, sir," Susan said, leaning on a crutch and trying to stand at attention. "In the man's briefcase."

"I know," Sheridan said. "Garibaldi said it contained some accounts and addresses, but nothing damning. Nothing to point to who he was answering to. All we have is some circumstantial evidence and Garibaldi's word that he was involved in the assassination on President Santiago. And while that's enough for me, it's not enough for anybody else. Do you have anything else we can use?"

"Unfortunately, sir, just more hearsay and testimony," Susan said.

"And what is that?" Sheridan asked.

"Psi-Corps, Captain," Susan said. "One of our witnesses thinks there's a psi-cop involved."

The next thing he said was very guarded. If telepaths were involved thoughts could betray.

"Was this witness using...unconventional means," he asked.

"You could say that, sir," Susan said. "Do you want to know a name, sir?"

"Unfortunately, I think I've already guessed it," Sheridan said. "I think I've had an odd encounter with those unconventional means myself."

"Sir, I'm telling you right now," Susan said. "I'm not reporting her or the family."

"Relax, Susan," Sheridan said. "I'm not asking you to. I've never liked the way the Psi-Corps works. Look through history and you'll see separation of populations has never worked. But behind the assassination...?"

"My biases aside, sir," Susan said. "The news made a big stink about the Psi-Corps' recent active involvement in politics. And we know something is wrong."

Sheridan nodded, not mentioning that part of what he was here to do was to investigate the staff and provide an avenue of safe harbor for the elements of the military that suspected...differing loyalties within the government.

"We can't risk the possibility that they're compromised," Sheridan said. "Leave the report as is. How's the Drazi thing going?"

"Well, it's over for us, sir," Susan said.

"Good work, how'd you manage it?" Sheridan asked.

"We dyed all the green sashes purple," Ivanova noted.

"That's all it took, huh?" Sheridan asked. "All right. Now, I think we should celebrate Mr. Garibaldi's return to service. Invite the rest of the command staff."

Susan recognized a call for an informal, off-the-books meeting when she heard it. Sheridan had used that method before occasionally in Mars and a couple of other places.

Ivanova knew very much that Sheridan's paper trail and official record made him look like a hard case blunt force soldier. But that was because of these informal staff meetings keeping the bulk of his method off the record.

Sheridan wasn't a strange to intrigue, even if he acted naive and overly idealistic.

"I understand, sir," Susan said with a smile. "Have a place in mind?"

"Normally, one of the places around here," Sheridan said. "But for something this private...maybe my quarters would be better."

"Understood, Captain, now, should I hobble my way out?" Susan asked.

"Get to it," Sheridan said. "I'm going to pay a visit to medlab."

"Careful there, Captain," she said.

* * *

"Well, she has an aggravated concussion," Dr. Franklin said cautiously, aware of the security guards. "A wrenched soldier and appears somewhat dehydrated for some reason. You need to drink more water, especially with your body temperature."

"Yeah, I try to," Shanti said.

There were also some signs of use of the neurons similar to a telepath pushing themselves but in a slightly different pattern.

"She'll be fine in a day or two," Franklin said. "Nothing to worry about. I'm going to suggest you wait at least that long before doing anything strenuous. Just in case there's something that doesn't show up until then. No good being on a ship in the middle of nowhere needing a doctor you can't get to."

Rally nodded. It wasn't the most subtle way to warn her against leaving soon, and the message was easy to understand.

"All right, Doctor," she said, looking to Shanti. "Two days of resting, Shanti. That means staying home."

"Aww," Shanti whined. "That means no video games."

"I think we'll all be staying in," Rally said, by way of compensation. "Business can hold for a little bit."

Vivian nodded at that and fiddled a bit.

"Do you mind if I intrude a bit here?" a new voice asked.

The Vincents and Dr Franklin turned about to see Sheridan sticking his head into the room, smiling broadly.

"If you want, Captain Sheridan," Rally said narrowing her eyes at him.

Sheridan looked toward the guards on the door then.

"I think you two can head back to security," Sheridan said. "The suspect is in custody and I don't think he has any accomplices set to kill our witnesses."

"All right, sir," the men said as they were dismissed.

Sheridan turned back toward Rally.

"Commander Ivanova told me about that bit of...detective work you did in tracking down this dirty cop of ours," the captain said with a smile and clear emphasis. "I have to say thank you, though I don't think I can do much more than that right now."

"I had some of my own motivations," Rally said. "But hey, it might bring me some business."

"Well, about that," Sheridan said in embarrassment. "Your name isn't going in the official report. It would look bad, you see, if the home office thought we had to depend on a civilian over here for information."

"Wait," Shanti said excitedly. "Does that mean we don't have to leave?"

"Shanti!" Vivian snapped in a hushed tone as Rally held out her hand.

"Leave?" Sheridan said with a laugh. "I certainly hope not. I don't get to meet interesting people too often."

"Sometimes people don't like having others interested in them," Rally noted.

"Oh don't worry about me getting in your business," Sheridan said. "I'm not looking to start whole new corps or anything."

Rally looked toward the Doctor whose mouth was hanging open and then back toward Sheridan, crossing her arms.

Subtle was not the nature of hints dropped by these people it seemed. Pretty fine with her.

"I told you he was a good person," Vivian said quietly.

"Thank you for that, Captain," Rally said calmly, dropping her arms down to her side.

"Thank me for what?" Sheridan asked with a smile as he started to turn to leave before turning back. "Oh, by the way, we're going to be having a celebration of sorts over Mr. Garibaldi's return to duty. It'll be at my quarters, time to be determined, talk to Commander Ivanova for the details."

"Another party?" Shanti asked hopefully.

"This one sounds like it'll be a bit boring," Rally said. "Like the parties we have when I have old friends over."

Vivian and Shanti nodded then.

"Oh," Vivian said. "I got it."

"Will we see you then?" Sheridan asked.

"I haven't decided yet," Rally said. "I'll let you know."

"Right," the Captain said with a smile as he left.

* * *

It was later, by a day or more, coming home from the day's work that Sheridan walked into his quarters to get ready for the party that would be coming.

He walked into his quarters and stretched, running his mind through things.

"Lights," he said idly.

The lights flashed on in the room and he caught, out of the corner of his eyes, Rally Vincent sitting in a corner of his room.

"Well, I guess I can expect you tonight," he said harshly after a moment of surprise.

"One thing you are going to understand now," Rally said. "My girls are minors and they are nobody's weapon."

"I can respect that," Sheridan said. "If you can respect me enough not to pull this again. I've seen your record, I don't need proof over it."

"If it was just me, yeah not worth insulting you," Rally said. "I owe my girls at least one demonstration."

"Good," Sheridan said. "Now all I have to hope is I don't get a reputation for having a woman let herself into my quarters."

"Don't worry about it," Rally noted. "You're very much not my type."

"Oh?" Sheridan said, mildly curious. "What type is that?"

"Two X chromosomes for one," Rally noted. "They made some vague notes in my discharge papers on that."

"Right, forgot about that," Sheridan said, flushing nervously. "Well, I suppose we should wait for the others then."

"What's for dinner?" Rally asked casually...

* * *

When Garibaldi arrived to find Rally in Sheridan's quarters already, he blinked and paused a moment before entering his normal friendly attitude.

"Well, this is a surprise," he said. "I thought this was a command staff party."

"Yes," Sheridan said. "Well, I figured that we should have a semi-official apology for the recent problem."

"All right," Garibaldi said, turning toward Rally. "I'd say nice to meet you when we're not talking about some sort of assault or the like, but looks like it is already to late for that."

"That's fine," Rally said with a smile. "I'm used to talking shop. I hear you're out of medical leave."

"That's right," he said. "How's Shanti?"

"She's fine," Rally said, hiding the fact that she was a little troubled by that. "She's not happy that I won't let her go to the arcade while she's healing up, but she's fine."

"Good to know," Garibaldi said, moving over to sit down across from her. "Mind if I ask something?"

"I guess so," Rally said shrugging.

"I saw the hole in Jack's hand and the scoring across his thigh," Garibaldi noted. "What about the bruised ribs?"

Rally was silent for a little bit.

"Probably Shanti," she admitted.

"You're joking," Sheridan said with a laugh. "She's tiny."

Before Garibaldi could respond, the call button ringed and Sheridan called out for the next visitor to enter. Commander Ivanova hobbled in dressed in an evening gown and with her hair down.

"I wasn't sure how formal we were...oh hello," she said, noticing Rally sitting across from Garibaldi. "Miss Vincent, this is something of a surprise."

Rally waved in response.

"I asked her to come somewhat last minute," Sheridan noted with a smile. "I guess this just leaves Dr. Franklin."

Susan limped her way over to a chair and sat down, watching Rally with curiosity and looking toward Garibaldi with a question as he shrugged.

As Franklin arrived a few minutes later, he came in nodding to everybody clearly not surprised by the bounty hunter's presence.

"You knew about this?" Ivanova accused.

'He was there when I was invited," Rally explained. "He was about as surprised as I was then."

"And now that we're here," Sheridan said, pouring out some drinks for his guests. "It's time to..."

Garibaldi raised his hand up for a moment.

"Let's not pretend this is about me coming back to the job," he said. "Because we all know it's a little more than that."

"All right then," Sheridan said with a frown as he sat down. "To business, if you want. Most of you here don't know me very well, but I've worked with Susan in the past."

He nodded toward Ivanova and leaned companionably forward in his chair.

"Everybody knows what happened at the end of the last year," Sheridan said. "And most of us here know that it looks like that accident was no accident."

Rally sat up then and shifted forward, she'd heard rumors, of course, but nothing substantial. Sheridan, meanwhile glanced over toward Garibaldi.

"Before I was shot in the back," he said. "I found a shipment of poor-man's jamming signals designed to jam the Presidential Gold channel. I was ambushed and didn't wake up again until recently."

"This Jack," Rally started, half disbelieving. "Was part of an assassination plot?"

"It's looks to be the case," Sheridan said. "And we have you to thank for suggesting that the Psi Corps is involved."

Rally's mouth opened slightly before she smacked a hand to her forehead.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered.

"Unfortunately, no," Sheridan said seriously. "Now, you don't have proof, and legally, I'm probably putting my neck in a sling, so leaving you out of the reports has the potential to bite me in the ass later."

"I'm not asking you to cover for me or mine," Rally noted seriously. "We can take care of ourselves."

"Trust me here," Sheridan said laughing, "even if I wanted to report your kids as rogue telepaths, which I don't. Susan would do something to stop it and I can't afford to lose her as an officer."

"Well, thank you sir," Susan said. "It's good to be appreciated."

"Unfortunately," Garibaldi said. "I don't think a couple of rogue telepaths are going to get much credibility. And we'll be taken as conspiracy theorists and criminals ourselves if we try to use that testimony."

"That would be the case if Vivian was a telepath," Susan said.

"Excuse me?" Franklin said curiously.

"What are you talking about, Susan," Sheridan asked.

"Vivian is an object reader," Rally said. "And..."

She paused for a moment and thought about it.

"Shanti is a pyrokinetic," the bounty hunter said.

"Pyrokinetic?" Sheridan repeated.

"It means she can start and control fires," the doctor said with a giddy expression. "This is amazing, it explains her metabolism and body temperature quite a bit. She'd need immense amounts of energy to be able to..."

He noticed Rally turning to look at his excited explanation.

"Right," he said. "Don't worry about me."

"It would also explain that explosion when we were firing on Jack earlier," Garibaldi said.

"And what's an 'object reader'?" Sheridan asked.

"If she picks something up that was being held by someone when something major happened," Rally said. "She'll see what happened."

"Okay, so when you had your hacker friend send that message?" Michael asked.

"He'd let us in to use the shooting range and let us borrow his weapon," Rally explained. "Vivian saw everything when she picked it up."

"It has to be something intense?" Sheridan asked.

"Intense emotions last longer as an impression apparently," Susan interrupted. "So if it's just something normal, it'll be useless in..."

"Ten or fifteen minutes," Rally finished. "More intense emotions will last a lot longer depending on a few things. That gun is likely to hold that image for a long time."

"And given that they're not, technically, telepaths," Garibaldi said. "What does that give us?"

"It means there's no law on the books to govern them," Sheridan said with a bit of relief.

"It won't stop Psi-Corps from snapping them up," Rally said grimmly.

"Hence why no mention of your name is included in our reports," Sheridan said. "If the Psi Corps, or even just elements of it, are behind President Santiago's death then we can't afford to give them our only witnesses."

Rally's frown deepened at that chosen wording.

"Which is fine, because we weren't reporting them anyway," Susan repeated.

"Even without putting them in the report," Garibaldi said. "Someone is going to realize that you were involved just by the rumor mill. You raised a ruckus they're still talking about in Downbelow."

"Right, here at least we can watch your back," Sheridan noted firmly. "In case someone tries to close some loose threads."


	4. A Distant Star

Jack smiled as he felt the vessel carrying him come to a stop not more than a day or two after leaving Babylon 5. That would be his backers coming to "take custody" of him. After this, he'd likely have to stay under the radar, just in case the small-minded old-world command staff of Babylon 5 spread his picture about, but that was fine, he was fine working in the shadows.

He waited patiently for the guards to come to his cell.

They came with a woman in the ill-fitting uniform of an Earthforce commander, not the uniform that Jack expected to see.

"Who are you?" he asked, furrowing his eyes.

The woman, in her early thirties, produced a broad smile under eyes that were intelligent but glassy in an uncomfortably unnatural way.

"You act like you expected someone to be picking him up," the guards said.

"He did," the woman said, producing a knife from her sleeve as she stood behind them.

"What are you doing?" Jack demanded as he watched the woman move.

She reached around to slash the knife over the neck of one guard and viciously into the eye of the next, twisting it.

"What the hell?" Jack shouted. "This is insane, it's supposed to be a simple transfer of prisoners and then I get lost in the paperwork. That's the contingency that was on the books..."

"Oh, I was getting tired of the mask," the woman said with a giggle. "This game is much more fun. You like us to play this game well, don't you mistress."

The woman came up to the door of his cell and opened it without regarding the cooling corpses behind her and she walked up straight to Jack and grabbed his injured hand, jerking it up toward her until the shackles that chained him to the wall pulled tight.

"This is her work," the woman said eagerly. "We've been watching her for you, her and they, and her work is here before me."

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked hesitantly as the woman stood up then.

She stepped back and opened her uniform up, revealing that the inside was heavily bloodied even if the surface seemed to have come out clear. Out from it she drew a syringe and a vial.

"And now it is finally time for us to start our task," she declared feverishly before looking over toward Jack.

He tried to fight her off, but the handcuffs and ankle chains hampered him, as did the injuries he still had. With those limits, he couldn't do much in the face of her lunatic drive and the needle slipped into his skin.

And after that he was swimming in a world of fantasy and imagining as he was carried through, the scenes of blood and death that littered the halls of the ship fading only in the background of his thoughts.

"Leave this ship to be found," the woman said, the words filtering dazedly through his drugged blanket. "She would love the chaos this will cause. What a fun game that will be."

The giggle that followed was more than inappropriate for the thirty-something woman, especially in its childlike sound.

* * *

"This Earthforce prison transport was discovered by a civilian freighter drifting in the space between two jump gates," the reporter on the news said. "When the crew of the freighter boarded the vessel they found this horrid scene."

And the screen behind the reporter shifted to shaky, scattered views of blood streaked walls and slashed Earthforce personnel. Much of the scene was fuzzed out to avoid showing "sensitive" material to potentially young viewers.

"Pause program," someone commanded.

The TV froze and a figure turned around to look at his fellows.

"Who is behind this?" the froggy, bald man demanded angrily. "Who'd attack one of our shi..."

"Two, President Clark," a small man in the dark uniform of a Psi-Cop said. "The ship intending to pick up the agent is also missing and I presume we won't find it any time soon in less than a hundred easily sellable pieces."

"Is it the Mars separatists?" Clark wondered.

"Doubtful," he said. "Forensics suggests that the violence was mostly for the sheer fun of it. Someone smart, crazy and with friends. That, however, isn't the biggest issue."

"And what is Mr Bester?" Clarke wondered irritably.

"Resume program," Bester said clearly looking toward the television.

"Included on the ship were information and reports that implicated the prisoner carried by this ship in an assassination plot against the late President Santiago," the reporter continued.

Clark frowned and swallowed angrily.

"Tainted evidence," he said immediately.

"You're still not seeing the big issue, Mr. President," Bester said, pointing to the screen. "We can deal with and repair this situation. We can even use it. The question is, how did this even get on the air without our..." he paused and made a brief condescending smile, tapping his forehead "...excuse me, Mr. President I meant your? How did this get on the air without your approval and foreknowledge?"

The president frowned at that. He was an ambitious man, not unintelligent and well educated, but his ambition had surpassed his patience and despite legitimately being one of the driving forces of the new world order, he wasn't one of the primary movers and shakers, bot by a long shot.

"Right, I'll have to look into that," he said.

* * *

"This is not good," Rally said with a frown as she paused to look up at the news screen and the report of the derelict craft's state was made plain.

The bounty hunter frowned, she was not unused to psychopaths breaking out of jail in order to get revenge on her for something. However, Jack hadn't struck her as anything but a soldier working for a cause, maybe not a true believer, but a loyal follower none the less.

Shaking her head, she bent back down to her work, doing some maintenance on Garibaldi's heirloom slugthrower. Not that there was much need for it, he apparently took good care of the weapon.

* * *

Rally grimaced as she came to the grudging realization that there didn't seem to be many members of the educational profession on the station. It was rational, most of the people there were laborers, merchants and military personnel, most of whom had family back on Earth or various colonies.

It wasn't a colony, it was a station.

She wouldn't expect to find schools or teachers at a mining facility either.

There were only a handful of children of various ages and species, probably less than a hundred overall. At the moment, she had them on correspondence courses set up so that she could go online and monitor their progress on various subjects.

It was considered a viable alternative to school for those that lived out in space away from established and stable colonies. However, Rally would prefer that they had someone to talk to other than her about subjects.

"Excuse me," a voice asked from the doorway to Rally's little office. "Are you the investigator?"

Rally looked up from her papers and smiled in a friendly manner as she stood up and walked to her counter to look at this potential customer. The man, a Brakiri, looked a bit nervous and fidgety, probably the first time that he'd ever thought to need a private investigator.

"That's me," she said, gesturing for the man to come forward. "How can I help you?"

"I need you to find some...something," he said, looking around.

"All right," Rally said, her thoughts running toward hidden motives. "What would that be?"

He looked at her curiously for a moment, as if trying to decide what to think of her.

"You have experience at this sort of thing?" he asked.

"I can assure you that I've been an investigator and bounty hunter for close to twenty years," Rally said. "Barring the years of the Earth-Minbari war, during which I was a front line soldier."

The man blinked in surprise at that and Rally resisted a smirk. The Brakiri had been male dominated for generations and only relatively recent developments had changed that. Some of them still had a little bit of trouble accepting females as equals.

"I see," he said, coughing self-consciously. "You will of course keep this confidential."

"Barring a court order, yes," Rally said.

The Brakiri nodded and looked back over his shoulder.

"There's nothing illegal," he said. "Just...a bit embarrassing."

"All right," Rally said. "What's the issue?"

"I was...accosted while returning to my living quarters from work yesterday," he said.

"Have you reported this to station security?" Rally asked, frowning.

"No, no need for that," the Brakiri said. "I'd rather keep this situation...out of the public view. The criminals got away with a petty amount of cash and some jewelry, but they also took a data crystal."

"Uh huh," Rally said. "And do you want that data crystal returned or destroyed?"

"Returned," the man said quickly. "I have a business meeting soon for which that crystal is vital. Without it, I'll lose a profitable deal."

"Is it of use to anybody else?" Rally asked.

"No, my biometrics are the key to decrypt the information," he said. "It is basically show of trust and identity. Without me, the information is unobtainable, but if I lose the data crystal, then I'm obviously not a trustworthy business contact."

"So you want me to get the crystal back without anybody realizing that you've lost it," Rally reasoned.

"That's right," he said. "I don't have time to get someone from off station and you seem to be the only investigator on the station that is not one of the station security."

"Okay," Rally said. "What can you tell me about the guy who mugged you."

She took the man's name and wrote down the information. There were two thugs involved and one had used the other's name, at least a street name, "Grip".

That should be somewhat easy to track down.

She said good bye to her new client and turned to the little phone she carried to contact her girls.

It was only a pair of rings before Shanti answered the phone.

"Heya, Rally," she called happily and Rally looked to the background of the view and saw that she had gone back to arcade pretty much as soon as she was allowed out of the quarters.

"Kitten, I need you and your sister to watch the store for a bit," she said casually.

"Both of us?" Shanti asked.

"Both of you," Rally confirmed. "And, remember, messages, information..."

"Don't take orders, don't do any work," Shanti repeated with a sigh. "I know, I know."

"Good, Mr. Garibaldi's gun is ready and he might be over in the next little while," Rally said. "So I'll show the both of you where it is when you get here."

* * *

"There have been some rumors circulating around the Minbari on station," Na'Toth said.

"A Minbari rumor?" G'Kar said leaning forward curiously. "That's most unusual, they're usually a very tight-lipped people. What are they talking about then?"

"The rumor is about an Earth-Minbari war veteran," his aide said, handing over a data crystal for him to look over.

"Ah, that would be Sheridan," the ambassador said, waving the concern aside. "Everyone is well aware of their rather intense dislike for the fellow. This is nothing new."

"Actually, the person they're talking about is a Rally Vincent," Na'Toth explained.

G'Kar blinked and looked up toward his aide casually.

"Really, I've met the woman, what has she done to bring whispers against her?" he asked.

"They say that she's an Earthforce assassin," the ever pragmatic aide noted. "I looked into it."

"And what did you find?" G'Kar asked as he pulled up the information on the crystal. "Hmm, I might have to look into shopping today."

* * *

"Uh, Londo," Vir said nervously.

"What is it, Vir?" Londo asked, sighing as if facing a heavy frustration. "I'm busy. The Abbai are proving troublesome over one of our trade routes that apparently somewhat brushes past their territory. They apparently want us to pay fees or go around for merely skipping over a corner."

"Of course, sir," he said. "I just thought you might like to know that I think I've identified that human girl you mentioned."

"The what?" Londo asked.

"The human girl who you said interested the technomages?" Vir noted.

"Oh, yes, her," Londo noted with a nod. "Well, it is good to see that you are able to follow through on such minor, curiosity driven requests while I am trying to escape paying these amphibian vultures their little bribe."

"If you please, Londo," Vir said nervously. "I gave you a report on the Abbai situation already, the report is in your computer under the treaty files and I think you'll find that we are currently passing through Abbai space for three whole d..."

"Yes, Vir," the older centauri said irritably. "I'm aware of the numbers, why did you feel the need to put it into a report?"

"Because, that's what reports are for, to note down the facts," the ambassadorial aide noted.

"Vir, Vir, you always amaze me with your naivete," Londo said. "Facts are the last thing you want to place in a report. If you place a fact in a report, there's no way to deny it later."

"But what do you put in a report?" Vir asked.

"Nevermind, Vir, just tell me this information you found," the bombastic amabassador said. "Perhaps it might be an amusing diversion for a little bit."

"Well, her name is apparently Vivian Vincent," Vir said, opening his mouth to continue before Londo interrupted him.

"Oh great Maker what an unfortunate name," Londo said. "It sounds like someone stuttered as they were naming her."

"Maybe so," Vir said. "But her mother apparently runs a weapons shop in Red Sector, Gunsmith Cats. She's supposed to also be some sort of private investigator."

"Ah, yes," Londo said. "I know of this profession. They're basically licensed, freelance spies. It seems to be a tradition of the humans to use such agents to peek at their husbands and wives being unfaithful. Is there anything else? Anything that might explain what makes her unusual?"

"Not that I could..."

"Nevermind, Vir," Londo said standing up and grabbing his coat. "I think I'll shall pay a visit myself."

"But the Abbai..." Vir said.

"Just make sure we lose neither time nor money on the matter and you can handle it as you want," Londo said dismissively as he left the room.

Vir's mouth held open for several seconds after he was left alone.

"How do I..." Vir wondered before shaking his head. "Nevermind, I'll think of something."

* * *

Rally had left the Red Sector thirty five minutes ago, the people there still buzzing over the arrival of the Cortez. Probably the only explorer ship many of them would ever see. She had to see about giving the girls a chance to see it.

Something to tell their children about.

For the moment, however, as she entered the deeper parts of down below in search of this "Grip" and his partner, she was more concerned with her immediate surroundings than events of historical significance.

Until she found what she was looking for.

"Hello again," she said idly.

"Oh God," the thug said turning around to face her. "You're here again?"

"Yeah, I need directions," the bounty hunter noted, bringing out a credit chip. "Where can I find someone named 'Grip'?"

* * *

Finding Grip was a lot easier than she expected, the man was making no attempt at hiding. In fact, it seemed like he'd made a big deal of being something of headache for half the lurkers of Down Below. Nobody seemed to care too much about whether or not he got pinched or killed.

She'd been on easier jobs, but until the job was over, she was always more cautious when things got too easy.

The bounty hunter turned a corner and glanced over her shoulder towards the clattering of a sound. She waited momentarily and frowned as she waited for more to develop out of that sound before continuing onward.

Slowly the sound of a laughing, drunken voice singing wondered up through the halls and she started to track in on it until she came to see a weaving human sitting at a table with a scattering of items of miscellaneous variety including a gun case, several data crystals and assorted jewelry and credit chips.

Walking over cautiously, Rally pulled the gun case away from the insensate man and stopped as she recognized an engraving on one corner of the case. With narrowed eyes, she opened it to see a familiar weapon within.

Her CZ 75, a weapon nearly three hundred years old with only a few replacement parts and kept in religiously good working order. She'd left it behind on Mars so that Vivian wouldn't accidentally get her hands on it and see such things as Goldie in all her psychotic fury.

"Where'd you get this?" Rally demanded the dazed thug as she took it and checked it over quickly enough before sliding the fully loaded clip into its stock.

"Huh? It? Get this?" the man asked. "I get it good. I get it fine. Get it all the time."

Rally put the gun in the back of her pants and snatched the visible data crystals before turning and grabbing the drugged out thug by the collar.

"Where'd you get the gun?" she demanded looking around cautiously.

"Get the gun, hold the gun, keep the gun," the man muttered chuckling without any apparent concern up until the energy burst destroyed his face.

Rally rolled out of the way and into cover as she dropped the corpse and directed her gun towards the direction the blast had come from, hearing a stream of cursing Minbari as she did so.

She looked about her surroundings quickly muttering to herself as well, cursing herself with a muttered "this sucks."

"Was that shot meant for me?" she asked out loud.

"Don't paint me with your brush, assassin," the other person called out. "I am not part of your dirty profession, I am merely here to see honor done."

The Minbari she heard couldn't be the shooter, his voice was in entirely the wrong direction. That meant he was trying to distract her for his friend or friends.

Well, she could handle that.

* * *

Shanti sat on a work stool, humming cheerfully to herself as she fingered the gun case in front of her and scanned about to see if her sister was paying attention.

The humming got a bit quieter as she started to undo the latches on the case as carefully as she could. One of them snapped open a bit louder than she wanted and she hummed louder for a moment as she started to look around for Vivi again and then turned her attention back to the case. She was cracking it slowly open, the light starting to work it's way in when...

...it closed with a thunk and she only just got her fingers out of the way.

"Vivian!" Shanti snapped angrily. "What did you do that for?"

Vivian stayed calm, enough used to Shanti's hair trigger that she was never worried about it when directed at her or Rally. Getting excited back just made things worse, staying calm tended to keep her sister from going over.

"It's a client's weapon, Shanti," she said, locking the case closed and taking it to the back of the shop again. "So no touching."

Vivian was treating the case as carefully as Shanti at first, though for different reasons. However, it quickly became apparent that the case itself didn't have much if anything for her to flash on.

"I wasn't going to touch, I just wanted to see what it was," she said poutingly. "Oh! Maybe he has a desert eagle...no, the case is too small."

"Just leave it alone, Sis," Vivi said, rolling her eyes.

She moved back to the front of the store and turned on the monitor before switching over toward the Mars 1 formula races. Shanti groaned and rolled her eyes as she sat at the counter and kicked her feet out.

"Uh oh," Vivian said in a wincing tone, drawing Shanti's eyes to the TV in time to see a car fly upward into the air in Mars' lower gravity before smashing into the high wall that surrounded the track.

A brilliant fireball erupted on the screen kicking the driver compartment outward into the center of one of the pits. The crew there scattering for cover from the safety pod and various other shrapnel.

"I'd watch racing more if that happened more often," Shanti noted, pointing to the screen as the fireball was replayed.

As the driver came out of the pod conscious and alive, but with a clearly broken leg, Vivian sighed in both relief and grief simultaneously.

"He's on my fantasy team," she muttered sadly.

"Hello," a curious voice called out from the doorway. "Is anybody here?"

Vivian and Shanti turned to the doorway to see a slightly rotund Centauri of middle years standing there, a trace of white through his crest of hair.

"Oh," the man said. "There you..."

He stopped and frowned as he looked between the two girls, noting the similarities that weren't quite hidden by their differing tastes in clothing and hairstyle.

"Let's see, which of you is the young lady that I've conversed with previously," the man asked curiously.

Vivian raised her hand as Shanti looked over at her, after which, the long haired girl pointed to her sister and stared at the centauri.

"Ahh, I see," Londo said. "Right, I remember now, just shy of a proper centauri woman's hairstyle."

"Centauri women go bald," Vivian noted.

"Yes, that's true," Londo said.

Her sister twittered in response.

"You're looking for Rally, right?" Vivian asked harshly.

"Actually, I was wanting to..." Londo was interrupted as another person walked into the small shop.

"Excuse me," the Narn coming into the shop said. "Miss Vincents, I was wondering if I might see your..."

The Narn stopped talking as he noticed who he had just brushed past.

"G'Kar, how interesting to see you here of all places," the centauri said.

"I was just thinking the same thing, Mollari," G'Kar said with narrowing eyes.

"Yes, I suppose you were," returned Londo with a self-important nod, eyes latched to his old rival. "Watch yourselves, children, G'Kar here is an incorrigible womanizer. If you let him talk too long I'm guessing your virtues surrendered."

"Excuse me?" Vivian demanded, blushing.

"Huh?" Shanti asked, blinking.

"What ar...Mollari!" G'Kar snapped, "Only you could leap to such a despicable assumption off the bat. Most species have enough decency to recognize a child from a woman."

"Hey!" Vivian snapped, angry this time.

"Just what are they talking about?" Shanti wondered, doing what she usually did when things were confusing: sit coquettishly and blink with wide eyes until someone explained things.

"Yes, so they do," Londo said. "I'm glad to see the narn are starting to realize that fact, maybe they're just a few evolutionary scales away from adopting such decency themselves."

"Mollari, are you accusin..." G'Kar started to shout angrily before pausing and then laughing darkly. "Oh, I see, you're trying to distract me are you? Just what are you doing here at Miss Vincent's place of business, were you thinking to...take out a contract of sorts?"

Outside assassins, the narn thought, of course the Centauri would sink so low. It was the sort of bloodthirsty thing they could think of.

"What are you..." Londo paused and frowned. "Ah, aha! You can always tell an enemies plans by what he accuses you of! I see, G'Kar...I suppose you have a request of the...the operator of this business yourself. Some rocks to kick over, eh?"

Certainly the Narn would start turning to other races for spies, their own questionably-labeled minds could at least understand that that would be a clever thing to do.

"Oh!" Shanti called out in a sharp excited tone, drawing all eyes toward her. "Do you have anymore war stories, Mr G'Kar?"

"War stories?" Londo asked. "You think you can get war stories from a narn? Their idea of a war is picking up two rocks and pounding them together in hopes of sparking a lightning bolt."

G'Kar fumed for a moment and then leaned forward with a smile toward Shanti.

"Well, that's about all one needs to blow away something as stuffed up as a Centauri," G'Kar said.

"Stuffed up?" Londo said. "What would you know about fashion and dignity, your world is a dry thing with almost no color."

"Yes, one wonders how that happened," the narn said with dry and controlled rage.

"So, umm, stories?" Shanti asked, blinking cutely.

"How about I tell you about the valiant liberation of Illaz III," Londo said with a beaming smile.

"The liberation?" G'Kar noted. "How about the slaughter of Illaz III?"

"Well, this is amazing," Londo said. "First the realization about a proper age of courting and now he's properly labeling the senseless violence of his people."

"Are you guys going to keep arguing like that all the time?" Vivian asked.

"There is no arguing with the narn," Londo protested. "They simple rant nonsense at you until you get bored."

"Nonsense is one thing I will agree you have an expertise in Mollari," G'Kar noted with raising voice.

Shanti leaned over toward her sister.

"I hope they're still doing this when Rally gets here so I can have evidence for the next 'old enough to control yourself' lecture," she whispered.

* * *

Rally drew out the CZ with her right hand and put a PPG in the right as she listened and watched signs and breathed in the air.

"I'm not surprised to find you sneaking around down here dealing in such sordid messes as this," the Minbari was saying.

He was moving, slowly, his voice was distracted with exaggerated caution. There were occasional clinks here and there from what she expected was a prematurely extended fighting pike.

She rolled her eyes at the obvious innuendo that came with that thought and then turned back to the situation at hand.

In any case the, the inexperience was rank.

The Minbari wasn't the only one around.

She could hear shuffling feet moving about the make shift barricades, people trying slide their feet so they didn't make noise. Then flickering lights that were partially visible through gaps in the ramshackle walls were blocked out. The lingering smell of energy blast discharge wafted through the recycled air along a path that told her her shooter was behind one of the make shift walls and moving to find a new entry at her. Small creaks and flaps came from the walls where they were unsteady, with weak welds.

In the movies, the heroes usually closed their eyes when they were concentrating and "using all their senses."

That was a mistake, using all your senses meant all your senses, not just one or two of them while leaving out the strongest. Though she had to admit,that when she'd started that with her father back as a kid, closing her eyes made it easier to focus on the others. But once you mastered it, really mastered it, it wasn't something you turned on or off.

It was just something you did.

Which was why she knew that the Minbari was not aware of the others.

"Sordid, complicated, messy and psychotic," Rally said idly. "Yeah, my life sucks."

She reached out with the PPG and fired it into one of those creaks indicated a weak weld at ten and one o'clock before twisting about and doing the same at the base of the converted shelving unit she was sustaining cover behind, melting the legs that held it up.

Rally twisted about to the other side of her now falling cover, fired out twice with the CZ 75 into the hard metal of the wall outside the small lurker-made room. The first bullet smacked into the wall and bounced left, the second bounced right with accompanying cries of pain.

The wall she had been sheltering behind was collapsing over as the legs that had held up the overburdened unit. Then she stepped up onto the falling wall, quickstepping over it backwards, her own weight adding to its momentum.

The minbari slipped out of his cover bearing his fighting pike and charging forward as Rally fired again with her PPG and another section of wall fell downward on top of him.

Rally's perch slammed into the nearest wall and the welds weakened by the bounty hunter's first shots gave way with a wrenching noise as someone behind the wall cried out in shock and fear, punctuated by randomly fired PPG shots that had no hope of hitting anything.

The bounty hunter showed that she hadn't slowed down, not even deep into her thirties, as she rolled with the impact out into the hallway concealing the forces surrounding the little room.

A man in dirty clothes stared at her vacantly and charged in with a piece of pipe until one of his knees exploded sending him stumbling down into the hallway as Rally passed by him, walking backwards and shot behind her.

One of the men had pointed a PPG at her and lost a thumb before he could depress a trigger. Another man's shoulder was burned through with a PPG blast as he tumbled backward.

Steps, quick now rushing, a couple limping. The Minbari was pushing the shelves off and trying to get into the fight again, or at all.

Rally twisted to face the way she was walking and fired, two bullets lashing out to strike one of the men as they came around the corner at her, shoulder and wrist. Another man with the same drugged out look dodged around his partner running at the walking bounty hunter with a war scream that turned into a high pitched shriek after she shifted aside simply and gave him a bit of a boost with a foot delivered somewhere south of his center of gravity.

A limping man clutched to the wall as she came around, leveled a gun at her and was smacked unconscious with the hilt of her CZ as the PPG fired again and into the knee of the second man who she'd struck with a ricochet earlier.

The Minbari leaped out of the room as she came to the entrance she'd originally taken into it. He wasn't totally untrained given how he'd just managed to surprise her.

However, the way he took advantage of it was less wise. He slammed the fighting pike horizontally into her, pushing her back away into corridors away from the battlefield and presenting his back to any of her attackers that still remained standing and simultaneously giving her distance away from him.

She landed on her back and couldn't completely roll off the impact, but came up to her knees quickly enough, the CZ 75 barking out three more times as the Minbari came at her.

The bullets passed by the young, oblivious warrior. Then he was swinging his pike down at her cursing bitterly as she rolled off to the side and back to her feet, nursing the left shoulder slightly as she danced away.

"The great Stalking Cat a little rattled?" he asked. "Can't you fire straight?"

Rally ducked under his next swing, reached out with the PPG and firing again. The sound of a cry behind the Minbari distracted him long enough that he failed to correct his overbalanced stance. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air, head downward before slamming painfully back into the ground.

"That's about all the small fry," Rally called out loudly. "Where's the big fish?"

Yelling out loudly, the Minbari stumbled to his feet and swung out at Rally who dodged back away.

"Face me, Vincent," he shouted angrily as he tried to catch up with her evading form and enraged at her grimacing face, irritated that she seemed to only be half looking at him.

"Get out of the way or you're going to ge..." Rally stopped mid sentence and dashed forward.

The bounty hunter twisted aside under the pike's strike and kicked a short hook into the back of his knee and pushing him aside behind her, his pike scattering along the hallway. The pistol came up firing twice just moments before a PPG burst slammed into her already injured shoulder.

The PPG fell out of her hand as she grunted and stumbled backwards.

The pistol was put back into her belt and she reached down with her right hand to grab the Minbari by the back of the collar and haul him up to his feet and around a corner, pushing the confused Minbari aside and redrawing her pistol.

"What is your game?" the Minbari asked.

"Survival," Rally said, checking her shoulder and flexing her left hand. "In case you haven't noticed, you've blundered into a trap."

"You admi..."

"A trap for me you idiot, or did you think I was just randomly shooting people," Rally said, looking around the corner. "You managed a hit, Jack. What's my score?"

"Damn you, Vincent!" came the response followed by a thump.

"Walking without knees," Vincent said. "That'll be a neat trick if you can learn it."

"I'm going to kill you, Vincent," he shouted. "I have to kill you."

"Uh huh," Rally said. "And who told you that?"

The Minbari started to stand and Rally casually pointed her pistol in his face, freezing his eyes on its large barrel.

"You're in the way," Jack said with effort, the sound of him trying to crawl toward where Rally stood clear among the various groans of drugged out thugs. "If you die everything is the way it should be. Everything goes right."

"What goes right, Jack?" the bounty hunter asked.

"The New World Order," Jack said. "Earth clean and pure and free of alien influence. Free to make things the way they should be. Don't you hate them? Vincent, didn't they kill Misty Brown? Shouldn't you want them all dead for your little lesbian who..."

Rally turned about the corner, ignoring the young Minbari she'd been covering. She fired at the prostate form of Jack, destroying his right hand and the PPG in it. He cried out in pain as she resolutely strode up to him and slammed a foot into his face.

"Part of me says this is kerasine talking," Rally said as she stepped on the man's hand. "But the rest of me knows that's because someone's dredged up your fantasy world to turn you against me. Either way, one more word about Misty and and I stop going _easy_ on you."

"You can't hurt me, I can't be stopped," he shouted. "I have friends and backers and..."

Rally kicked down into his face again, knocking him unconscious.

"The black knight always wins," she muttered and snapped her gun up toward the Minbari again.

The Minbari opened his mouth and looked past Rally to the struggling bodies of the various thugs and devastation that she'd left behind her without much issue out at all.

"I don't know your name," Rally said sharply, "but last time I saw that particular pike in a fight, its wielder treated it with enough respect not to drag it along the ground or let it sit like a piece of debris."

Closing his mouth, the Minbari stepped over and picked up the pike quickly turning it towards Rally and getting into stance.

"Are you going to face me now?" he demanded.

"Go get security," Rally said simply.

The Minbari frowned and looked about at the incapacitated, but still living thugs.

"Are you presuming to ord..."

"Are you still here?"

* * *

This is going to be a problem," Rally said.

"I hate to say it," Garibaldi noted, looking around the scene. "But given you didn't kill anyone, and they're lurkers, it might go overlooked."

"My girls are going to hear about this," the bounty hunter said with a frown. "This was supposed to be an easy recovery job. But looks like someone took advantage of the fact I'm the only investigator on station."

"You think this was about you," Garibaldi concluded. "Any particular reason?"

"I've seen this brand of evil before," the woman said quietly.

"Yeah, but Goldie Musou is dead," Garibaldi noted, idly revealing how much he knew of Rally's past.

* * *

"Hey!" Garibaldi called out as he came about a corner at a fast pace. "All I did was tie my shoes and you're half way to the next section, you'd think I was the injured one."

"Your uniform boots don't have shoe laces," Rally noted with a raised eyebrow.

Garibaldi looked down as he walked and shrugged.

"Well, I guess not," he said. "That might explain why it was so hard to tie them."

"Not going to go with your guy?" Rally asked, changing the subjects with a roll of the eyes.

"He's unconscious and in danger of bleeding to death," Garibaldi noted. "Much I'd like to interrogate him, I'd like him to love long enough for me to get anything useful out of him."

"Yeah, but you could wait for him to get out of medlab," Rally noted.

"Well," Garibaldi noted. "I'd kind of like to get what you have to say about this somewhere more private."

He paused for a moment.

"And there's the matter of my grandmother's gun," Garibaldi noted. "I got a message that it was ready."

"Yeah, yeah," Rally said. "I got it ready."

She held her injured arm with her good one, but didn't mention the obvious injury as she walked through the hallways. Garibaldi didn't bring it up, she'd refused to go to medlab a few times already until she was certain her daughters were safe.

At the moment, the injury was hidden by a borrowed security jacket so that not too much attention would be drawn to them as they walked through the passages. Rally was clearly eyeing things and taking corners in what looked a casual manner but minimized the chance of someone seeing her before she got a good look at what was coming.

"You play things close to the chest," he said.

"Not all of us can be as trusting as you," Rally quipped with narrowed eyes as she glanced toward his shoes and his link.

It was about ten minutes later that they appeared in the passages of the red sector that led toward Rally's shop.

Rally started to search the faces in the open area her shop sat in but was distracted by the sounds she was hearing.

"Of all the incorrigible..." a sharp, Centauri accented voice called out. "You there, girl, this is a weapons shop is it not? Quick, give me a weapon!"

"I can't..." Vivian's voice started to say.

"I'm not going to let you hurt Mr. G'Kar," Shanti called out angrily.

"Oh crap," Rally muttered, stepping up her pace and only barely catching a shift of movement that implied someone leaving the area quickly enough to disturb other people near by.

"Calm yourself, Child," G'Kar's voice came. "I doubt your foster mother would appreciate you dirtying your hands this way."

"Shanti, calm down," Vivian called out.

Rally turned around the corner to come into her shop with a very clear expression as Garibaldi sighed and followed her.

Rally's appearance combined with the fact that both Vivian and G'Kar had moved between Shanti and Londo allowed the more reactive twin enough distraction to calm down and back off.

"What is the meaning of this?" Londo asked indicating the impromptu human wall.

"That's my question," Rally said coldly.

She looked from G'Kar to Londo and then toward Vivian and Shanti.

"Kitten," she said in a soothing tone. "Can you go get Mr. Garibaldi's revolver for him?"

"Umm, sure," she said blinking and leaving the room.

"Madam," Londo said. "I would like to ask what you think..."

"Little Girl," she said dryly. "Why do I have Narn-Centauri politics in miniature in my shop?"

"They both came to talk to you," Vivi explained. "And then started arguing. Uh, Rally, what's wrong with your arm?"

"I see," Rally said, grimacing and pinching the bridge between her nose. "Anything else weird going on?"

"No, but...shouldn't you see a doctor?" Vivian asked, worriedly.

"I will," she said.

"Ms Vincent," G'Kar said. "I do apologize for this unseemly display. I merely came to discuss a matter of potential work when Mollari decided to stick his big belly into matters."

"My big what?" Londo snapped. "Are you descending to personal attacks then? That is always the last resort of someone with no good ideas."

"That explains why you start off there," G'Kar noted idly.

"Do you mean..." Londo started to say.

"Out of my shop," Rally snapped suddenly, pointing sharply with her injured arm without thinking about it.

She hissed in pain but didn't let herself wince...or move to catch the jacket as it fell off to reveal the charred hole in the clothes underneath, down to the clear PPG injury.

Vivian gasped at the sight and stepped over toward Rally's side.

"You need to go to medlab!" she said insistently.

"Madam, I think your daughter is right," Londo said. "That is a dreadful woun..."

Rally grimaced as she turned to face the man.

"Out."

Garibaldi shook his head and moved towards Londo patting him on the back cautiously and shaking his head.

"I think this is a matter for discretion," he said with a smirk, directing the Centauri out of the building.

"What is with these people?" Londo asked irritably. "First they're acting as if I need protection from a veritable child and the other doesn't seem to understand when a business opportunity has been presented."

"Londo," Garibaldi said under his breath. "There might be a video you need to see."

G'Kar waited a moment for Londo to leave and lingered to speak to Rally.

"I do seriously apologize for this display," he said. "I suppose I wasn't thinking clearly when Mollari appeared."

"If you want a sensible discussion, leave, call for an appointment and come back when I tell you," Rally said coldly.

"Yes, of course," he said, leaving himself.

Garibaldi came back in the door a few seconds later as G'Kar left and shook his head.

"Those two are always at each others' throats," he said. "One of these days it's going to be the death of one or both."

Shanti came in then, bearing the gun case with a smile as she walked up to Garibaldi.

"Can I see..." she stopped as she saw Rally's injury, dropping the gun case and only just recovering it before it hit the ground. "What happened?"

"I had a bit of trouble down below," Rally said comfortingly. "It's handled."

* * *

"You should have come right here," Dr. Franklin said with a lecturing tone as he glanced toward Shanti and Vivian watching from another part of the medlab. "Running around with a great bloody hole in your shoulder. All right, take the jackets off and your weapons, please."

"Right," Rally said, shaking her head as she sat the heavy pistol that had caught Franklin's eye on the table.

"All right, now that that monstrosity is out of..." he paused.

"Wait a minute," Rally said.

With a flick of her left hand, accompanying a wince, a spring-loaded brace pushed out holding a PPG.

"A back up weapon," Garibaldi said in an approving tone from nearby.

"Yeah, you never know," Rally said as she set that on the table next to the pistol.

"Yeah, it's always nice to have a reserve way to deal death and..." Franklin stopped as Rally reached around behind her back and produced another PPG. "Dismemberment."

She reached into her jacket then and drew out a kabar which joined the other weapons on the table.

"Okay, this is getting a little..." Garibaldi paused as Rally laboriously took off her jacket and revealed two belts around her waist holding an exhaustive number of power caps.

"Are you planning on starting a war?" Franklin asked.

"Doctor Franklin," Rally said, wincing as she tried to take the belts off. "If I were geared for war, you'd know it."

"So, is that all the weapons then?" Garibaldi asked.

"That would get in the way of treating my shoulder," Rally confirmed.

* * *

Morann ra Fe'enduma frowned as he followed the soft-spoken religious caste man to the quarters of the...person who had tainted her blood with human genetics. The humans had questioned him endlessly about what he was doing in that place and what had happened.

His frown deepened when he entered the Ambassador's quarters and heard her speaking to someone.

The person in the other chair stood up and turned to face the door.

"What is she doing here?" he snapped, pointing toward the human with her arm in a sling.

"Miss Vincent asked to speak with you," Delenn said.

"And of course you had to let her see me," he said. "I'll bet she's armed to the teeth right now and ready to kill all three of us."

"Actually, she surrendered her weapons while waiting," Delenn noted, gesturing toward a small pile of firearms sitting on a counter across the room.

"We need to talk before someone makes a mistake," Rally said seriously as she stood up. "Before there's another fight."

"Afraid I might finally get justice for my family?" he asked with a sneer.

Rally sighed and shook her head.

"Please, sit," Delenn said. "Lennier and I will grant you some privacy."

"We shall just be in the next room," Lennier said with emphasis as he collected Rally's weapons and moved into Delenn's personal quarters.

Morann watched them leave and moved resignedly to sit across from Rally as she sat back down. He watched as she took out a pair of photographs that held the images of two young human girls and placed them respectfully on the table.

"What is this?" he asked grimly.

"These are my daughters," Rally said. "I've raised them since they were left in my care, taught them, made sure they were protected..."

"And when you die, they will come after me," Morann said dismissively. "This is a cowardly attempt at intimidation, Stalking Cat, such a response is obvious."

"I'm not having those girls stained with pointless killing," Rally said coldly.

He looked down at the pictures then and up again, confused.

"Then..." he started to say.

"They've both come a long way," she said. "But they're not ready to protect themselves yet. Which means, I can't die yet. Not for something trivial."

"You call my brothers' vengeance trivial?" Morann demanded.

"The whole damn war was trivial," Rally said quietly. "Millions of people dead over two bad assumptions. Hundreds of thousands more bathed in blood for no good reason. Nobody really won."

"Only because our leaders betrayed us," the young warrior said.

"You were going to destroy the earth," Rally said. "Eliminate every man, woman and child of us. Civilians and military alike. Is xenocide something the Minbari would want in their history?"

The warrior fumed at that question.

"In the war, some of my people were heroes," she said. "They fought with everything at their disposal to protect our people."

She hung her head quietly.

"That's not why I fought," Rally explained. "I fought because some I loved was killed for no better reason than she was one human among thousands at a civilian, unarmed colony. I fought to kill and avenge."

"Then your kind should have thought before killing our greatest leader," Morann snapped.

"I like how you think you're more honorable because you were better at killing than we were," Rally said.

"What do you know about honor?" Morann asked. "You're an assassin, a stalker in the shadows, attacking from hiding."

"I know I've seen honor before," Rally said. "A man who faced off against an adversary, keeping them busy and neutralized for three days and forcing the failure of the enemy's current mission. All at the cost of his own life."

"I assume this was a relative of some sort," Morann said, bored.

"Yours," Rally commented. "And it is my shame that he died at my hands."

She took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"Before that war, I was a hero," she said. "I had fought real evil. I knew what it looked like, what it smelled like. I'd seen it destroy minds and I'd had it stick its fingers into my head."

She shook her head.

"I went to war for the wrong reasons," she added. "I went to kill. I didn't go to protect. There are questions we ask ourselves when we do something. Going into war, the questions are usually either 'what are we killing?' or 'what are we keeping alive?'."

"And which did you ask?" Morann wondered.

"The first one, the wrong one," Rally said. "And that means I'm a murderer. I have to live with that."

"Or I can kill you and you don't have to worry about it," Morann said.

"If that happens," Rally said, "and it won't because you're not good enough, then the aftermath doesn't give you anything. It just tears that hole in your heart bigger. And then you have become like me, a murderer."

"So all that talk about not killing is just talk then," Morann determined. "You'd kill me anyway."

"To protect my children, yes," Rally said.

"I'm not trying to kill your children, idiot," Morann said.

"If you destroy a wall," the bounty hunter said. "It isn't just destroyed for you. Anybody and anything else can wander in too."

They were quiet for a moment.

"I can't protect my girls from anything if you've killed me," Rally made clear. "I don't know if I'm getting through to you at all, but that's all I have to say. And to ask, 'what's your question?'"

She stood up and moved toward the thin wall separating the front room from Delenn's quarters as she let the young warrior stew. He wasn't attacking her at least.

That was something.

* * *

Garibaldi watched the security footage of the area around Gunsmith Cats for the second time and hit pause as an image came on the screen. That of a woman a bit younger than Rally turning about and leaving the area as soon as she saw the bounty hunter.

He had a face now at least.


	5. The Long Dark

"This is the USS Copernicus," a woman's voice repeated mechanically. "We come in peace. This is the USS Copernicus. We come in piece."

The hundred year old ship continued to drift through the dark, empty spaces carrying its passengers, the living and the dead.

* * *

Garibaldi frowned as he stared into the monitor, watching Jack rock back and forth and muttering to himself.

"Has he said anything useful?" Sheridan asked, coming into the room.

"No, everything is just the same repetition of New World Order and having to kill Rally Vincent," Garibaldi said.

"What happened to him?" Sheridan asked. "He's been gone for two weeks after that escape of his and he comes back like this?"

"Kerosine," Garibaldi said.

"That isn't something you can find just anywhere these days," Sheridan said.

"I know," the security chief said. "I was hoping that he'd start to come down after the drug started coming out of his system. But it doesn't just come out of your system, you have to clean it out of your system according to Vincent."

"She knows a lot about this sort of thing," Sheridan noted.

"I looked into it back when I realized who she was," Garibaldi said. "There's a Chicago police file, she was kidnapped, forcefully dosed with kerasine and brainwashed herself. Someone wanted to send her to kill a cop friend of hers. She resisted, managed to only wound him. Nobody is really sure exactly how."

"Does she know how to clean it out?" Sheridan asked.

"She gave me the name of a scientist to look for," the chief said, shrugging, we're looking into it. "Until then, I'm keeping his presence here quiet. Protective custody, danger to himself and others, that kind of thing."

"That playing a bit of a bluff," Sheridan said. "But I have to admit that he's not in a condition to take care of himself. And we know he's connected to the assassination of the president."

He sighed and shook his head before turning away from the monitors.

"Just be careful, Mr Garibaldi," Sheridan said as he left the room. "I have to look into that ship drifting out of deep space."

Soon after he left, a call came in. Some lurker shouting about the end of the world.

* * *

"This is from Earth?" Susan said, regarding the ship in the view screens. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Check your history books," Sheridan said. "That's a sleeper ship, from before we had contact with the Centauri."

"What's it doing out here?" Susan asked.

"Well, maybe something misfired," the captain suggested. "Or maybe it's supposed to be out here...who knows."

"We could always asked the pilot," Ivanova said, indicating the life signs.

* * *

"What did you want to talk to me about, Ambassador?" Rally asked G'Kar, who sat across from her counter at the moment.

"It has come to my attention just what part you played in the Earth-Minbari War," he said.

"You want to hire me to kill people?" she asked dryly with narrowed eyes.

"Well, certainly not in your current condition," G'Kar said, noting the sling.

"I don't do that," the bounty hunter said. "I'm a bounty hunter, private investigator and gunsmith. I've had enough of killing."

G'Kar nodded reluctantly and stood up.

"I can respect that, I suppose," he said.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't encourage my daughter in thinking war is glorious," Rally said.

"Ms Vincent," G'Kar said. "If you want her to appreciate the truth of war. Then maybe you should tell her about it rather than sheltering her."

He hadn't left yet when Vivian came into the shop at a run.

"Rally," she gasped. "You've gotta come quick."

"What is it now?" Rally asked.

* * *

"I told you both," Garibaldi said. "If she can't keep it under control, I'll have to do something about it."

Rally's hand was over her face as she shook her head in a bit of frustration.

"I thought it might be one of the people that attacked Rally," Shanti said quietly.

"I'm going to grant you this," Garibaldi said. "The man jumped out at her and was ranting about soldiers of darkness. And she stopped herself after one punch, but she still broke the man's nose."

"He was stinky and crazy," Shanti noted.

"What are you thinking of, Garibaldi?" Rally asked quietly.

"Community service, I think," the security chief said.

"Where?" Rally asked cautiously.

"I believe you know the Doc's free clinic?" Garibaldi said.

"But it's dirty down there," Shanti said quietly.

"I can agree with that," Rally said, leaning back and calming down. "She could use a bit of refresher on first aid anyway."

"One hundred hours sound good?" Garibaldi asked.

"But that's forever!" Shanti protested. "Can't I just apologize?"

"If the man you punched out wakes up coherent," the security chief said. "You can expect to do that too."

"Huh?" Shanti said. "I didn't hit him that hard."

* * *

Amis moaned as he woke up, thinking clearly as consciousness came back in. The memories were a bit fuzzy as usual, and there were some aches and pains as usual, felt like his nose was broken.

"What hit me?" he wondered.

"Well, to answer that," a voice said. "I've set up a visual aide."

The lurker looked up toward the voice and saw a man with a receding hairline directing attention toward a monitor on the wall.

"Is that a little girl beating up a drazi?" Amis asked.

"I never get tired of that," Garibaldi said, shaking his head. "Anyway, how are you feeling?"

"Like I was laid out by a hundred pound girl," Amis said.

"Said little girl has a one hundred days of community service to pay for it," Garibaldi noted. "She'll also be coming here to apologize."

"I find life is much more enjoyable if I don't remember most of the things I do," the man said.

"You were saying judgment day was coming," the security chief said.

"Did it?" Amis asked.

"Not yet, but I might have missed a meeting," Garibaldi said.

* * *

Meanwhile, a woman was being transferred from the Copernicus to the medlab at a rush and something darker slipped onto the station ahead of her.

* * *

"Does your daughter have any medical training?" the woman at the clinic asked Rally as Shanti sat aside with her arms crossed and looking rather contrite.

"First aid," Rally said. "So far she hasn't had much call to use it."

"That's...good," the woman said before leaning over and looking toward Shanti. "But I think you'll be out here mostly. Can you work as a receptionist?"

"I do that for Rally a lot," Shanti said. "Name, contact information, weapons license number, ID number, model, what work needs to be done..."

"Pardon me?" the woman asked.

"I'm a gunsmith," Rally said. "I do custom work for sport-shooters and law enforcement mostly."

"Oh, I see," the woman said vaguely. "Well, we won't have that much paperwork here. A lot of the patients don't have contact information, some don't have IDs. So the list of questions will be a bit different. But it's good that you have experience in this sort of thing."

Rally looked out of the clinic at the area of Down Below it was set in and noted that most of the people she was seeing were desperate and down on their luck, but didn't look violent. Still, Shanti had been told not to wander out of the clinic and to wait to be picked up before leaving.

Shanti could handle herself against one or two of most of the common thugs out there, but really, Rally didn't want her to have to handle herself. Especially given the temptation that was proving for her more...reactive nature.

"Where's Doctor Franklin?" Rally wondered.

"He's up in medlab," the woman said. "Can't be down here all the time, after all."

* * *

As far as Mariah was concerned, she'd gone to bed only the day before and now it was a hundred years later and her husband had died in the cryonic tube next to her in some strange, mysterious way.

She walked alongside the Doctor as he started moving out of the clean, shiny parts of the station.

"Are you sure you want to come down here?" he said. "This isn't exactly the best place in the world to get a bit of relaxation in."

"It's rather sad that we haven't escaped this sort of thing in the last hundred years, either," Mariah said cheerfully, putting aside her own discomfort.

"There's always going to be people that have and people that don't have," Franklin said cynically. "It's like seeking perfection, we're never going to reach it, but doesn't mean we should stop trying."

"I guess that's so," the woman said doubtfully. "You run a clinic down here?"

"Right," Franklin said. "And I've got a teenager starting community service here in a bit and I want to be on hand for her first day...just in case."

"There are kids here?" Mariah said. "I hadn't noticed that many."

"There are a handful," Franklin said, thinking about the bunch that Garibaldi set to clean the garbage reclaimers for running a pickpocketing ring. "And from what I can tell, this one in particular is a handful on her own."

"Oh, so she's not a volunteer then," Mariah said.

"No, in the past two months," the doctor said. "She's caused a broken arm, a concussion and a broken nose. All in self-defense."

"Must be a real tough girl," the woman out of time said, shaking her head.

And then they were walking into the area of Stephen's clinic and she was faced with the image of a small, Indian girl wearing a green dress and a tasteful display of makeup as she hummed prettily and attacked the almost uniformly charred and dirty walls of the Down Below room.

"Hello, Doctor," Shanti said politely, waving with her cloth.

* * *

Jack stood up and listened carefully at the door, still fixated on the thought of getting out and seeking out Rally Vincent. Part of his mind insisted that the thought was ludicrous, that the bounty hunter had nothing to do with the people he represented and wasn't important at all.

But it was impossible to pay much attention to that thought.

No, he had to find a way to escape and seek her out. And while he did that, he had to keep up appearances make them think he was insane.

Was he? He saw strange things sometimes.

Monsters and ghosts. Things that couldn't be real.

Goldie's followers were nowhere near as skilled as she was at breaking a person and it showed in Jack and the way that he was losing his ability to tell apart reality from kerasine induced hallucinations.

* * *

"Things are starting to get creepy over here Rally," Becky said quietly. "We had an...incident over here recently and Roy's almost positive he caught a glimpse of Mary Anne, or someone that could have been her."

"How long ago was that?" Rally asked.

"Friday before last," Becky said. "So couldn't be the one behind your problem."

"Great," Rally said, shaking her head. "What suddenly brought them out of the woodwork?"

"If I had to guess," Becky said. "They're running short of kerasine. I mean, Goldie pretty much took the formula with her, so there's nothing new being made. I'll bet she had stockpiles around the Alliance colonies and they're starting to run dry."

"Which means they're getting desperate," Rally said bitterly. "And maybe think it's their last chance to fulfill their mistress's desires."

"How the hell are they going to make you Goldie's slave if she's dead?" Becky asked.

"Do you really think they're that rational?" Rally wondered.

"I guess not," the hacker said. "By the way, Rally, I'm going to be taking up stakes soon. You'll get word about how to contact me, but it ain't going to be easy."

"What's up?" Rally asked.

"I said things were getting creepy, I wasn't just talking about our personal problems," the information broker said. "We're starting to get something called 'Night Watch' over here that's very much shades of Orwell."

"Wouldn't you be Orwell?" Rally asked.

"What?" Becky asked. "Oh, right, not the fictional 21st century Hacker, the 20th century novelist. You know, Big Brother is watching you...1984?"

"Right, got it," the Gunsmith said, shaking her head.

"It's a good thing you think you can trust these people," Becky said. "The outer colonies and places like Babylon 5 are probably the safest place for you right now. I'm signing out."

"See you later," Rally said.

She signed off and then twisted about, drawing her PPG to aim in the direction of a faint sound. Slowly, she calmed down and sheathed the weapon again as she kept her eyes open and headed back to the service tunnels to head for her quarters.

"Getting jumpy," she muttered.

* * *

"Janos is going to win this race," Keffler said confidentaly as the old-style stock car racers started to line up on the track. "He's got this track nailed."

"I'm looking at Waschowski," one of the other officers watching the race said.

"You're just saying that because that's the name everybody knows," Keffler noted. "Don't you pay attention to the races at all? There's no way that Waschowski is going to win this race, he's barely recovered from that broken collarbone when he wiped out a while back."

"And Janos is going to do better?" the other officer asked.

"Care to make a wager on it?" Keffler asked.

"I wouldn't mind," a young voice declared.

The two officers turned to look at the speaker and found a fifteen year-old girl with short brown hair and wearing a tight pair of jeans along with a practical t-shirt and biker-style faux leather jacket. They'd seen her around the Dugout the last month or so, but they hadn't found any interest in talking to her yet.

"And who would you bet on?" Keffler asked.

Vivi looked up toward the race screen and thought for a moment.

"Well, this stuff is usually up in the air," she said idly, "but I'll bet that Takano is going to better than either Janos or Waschowski."

"And what do you have to bet?" the other officer asked with a snicker.

"Vouchers for a custom weapon modification at Gunsmith Cats," Vivian said with a guilty shifty eyed expression.

"Well, that's interesting," Keffler said, nodding. "And what do you want?"

"I want permission to go into Earhart's," Vivian said instantly.

"Earhart's for officers," Keffler said.

"I like swing music," Vivian explained simply. "And Rally, my foster mother, doesn't want me hanging around outside the restaurant doors. So, if I want to listen or dance, I have to get in the restaurant."

"All right," Keffler said with a smile. "Looks like we have a deal."

As the pack of cars got started, Vivian watched eagerly for the direction the race was going.

Thirty minutes later, she was walking towards the door of Earhart's with a pair of handwritten notes securely in her pockets.

In just a moment, she was going to be stepping inside the room for the first time ev...

"We're all going to die!" a shout came out of the blue just before someone grabbed her and twisted her about to face him. "There's a soldier of darkness here! It came off that ship from the past..."

Amis did not carry many objects with him, from the past or otherwise, but the scarf around his neck was one item that he had for a long period of time and as Vivian reached up to push him away, she pushed her hand against the scarf.

A series of disjointed images flooded into her mind of monsters and demons out of the darkness.

She released the scarf quickly and stepped back with a sharply drawn in breath before stumbling over her feet to the floor.

"Man, you love living dangerously," Garibaldi said, coming by to grab Amis's arm and start to pull him aside. "Are you all right? Vivian?"

"I...I think I need to talk to you in a bit," Vivian said quietly.

"I'm not crazy this time, it did come," Amis said. "It came off that ship from the past."

"What did?" Garibaldi demanded.

"A monster," Vivian said quietly.

"You saw it too?" Amis asked eagerly.

"All right, let's go talk this over," Garibaldi said.

* * *

A wandering lurker, one of the few non-human lurkers, shambled around a corner and saw a great form towering over him.

Intently but casually, the lurker shuffled forward and reached out his hands as if asking for a little money.

And then the figure he was appealing to reached down and grabbed him.

The screams reverbrated through that section of Down Below.

* * *

Rally sighed and shook her head. Security was becoming something of a common place for her to be it seemed. Which shouldn't have surprised her given her line of work and the fact that she was now depending on the chief of security and certain of the command staff for anonymity.

But, in the past couple of months, she'd had Shanti called in by security three times. She herself had had to consult with security several times on bureaucratic terms and then that ambush that Goldie's little disciples had set for her. And now Vivian had "witnessed" something and she needed to be present in order for Garibaldi to get her side of things.

"I should just transfer quarters up to Red Sector," Rally said under her breath. "And maybe then Shanti will cause Garibaldi less headaches than I caused Roy."

She checked her phone for any responses from Shanti to her message, but there was only a read confirmation.

"She'd better stay there," Rally muttered.

Then she walked into the security office and nodded at Zack.

"She's over there, Garibaldi's talking to this lurker about something," Zack said. "I notice this one came in without someone visiting medlab or missing limbs."

"I can fix that, Mr. Allen," Rally said, arching an eyebrow.

"Ahh, right," Zack said. "Anyway, it shouldn't be too long."

Rally shook her head and walked over toward where her daughter was sitting in Garibaldi's office drinking a cup of something that steamed and that Rally fervently hoped wasn't coffee.

"Hey, Little Girl," Rally said.

Immediately, Vivian was up and moving across the room to hug the bounty hunter.

"Whoa, hey," Rally said. "What's wrong?"

"I saw...something..." she said. "I don't know what it was...a ball of lightning...I don't know."

Rally rubbed her back and patted her on the head comfortingly.

"Maybe it was a nightmare you saw?" Rally said possibly.

"It wasn't just one person's memories," Vivi said.

* * *

Shanti waved out toward the clinic staff as she headed out into the hallways looking to head up toward Brown Sector and home...or the Zocalo and the arcade.

There was a message on her phone that Rally was going to be late, and she'd judiciously stopped reading at that point, because all that would follow would be "stay there, I'll pick you up later."

Rally would be upset, but Shanti could take care of herself just fine.

The girl was looking about in an apparently idle manner as she walked along. Just in case someone decided that she was ripe for targeting, and to make sure she wasn't getting lost. She was looking down one corridor when she saw the withered form of some alien drop to the ground surrounded by a nimbus of light.

"Hey!" Shanti shouted, moving forward. "Are you okay?"

At first she'd thought it was some sort of shock or energy discharge from the station, but then the nimbus of lights seemed to coalesce into a rough humanoid form fifteen feet tall at the least and it reached out toward Shanti.

She didn't have any more clear image of the thing than that, but it was enough to trigger her to action, her hand slipping toward the mace canister in her pocket and well aware that wasn't near enough.

"STAY BACK!" she shouted in a near shriek as white shriek as the adrenaline in her system flared more than it had ever before.

The small white sparks appeared an inch or so ahead of her eyes as usual and quickly erupted into small suns with the intensity of her instinctual response to the unknown danger.

The first fire erupted out of the air, sparking the multitude of dust before heat to the point where various gasses normally inert also burst into flame. The creature hesitated and backed off just in time to avoid the white hot burning explosion that erupted throughout the hallway and leaving behind a line of melted metal along either side of the corridor five feet above the floor and pushing outward for another ten feet down the corridor.

And then Shanti full forward only a few yards away from the corpse of the alien that the soldier of darkness had just fed on.

* * *

It was a few hours later that Shanti woke up in medlab with her sister sitting next to her and Rally visible through the window talking to Garibaldi, Franklin and Sheridan in another room sealed off nearby.

"Vivi?" Shanti asked.

"Shanti! You're awake!" Vivian said.

"Yeah," the other sister said. "Did I kill it?"

"Kill...you saw the monster?" Vivi said.

"I saw...something," Shanti said sitting up.

"Don't be stupid," Vivi said, handing Shanti a bottle of water. "You were almost dehydrated to death when you came in here."

"I feel cold," Shanti complained, rubbing her arms and then taking the bottle of water.

"Your body temperature is at ninety-eight," her sister explained, pointing toward the monitors.

"You mean this is the way you and Rally feel all the time?" Shanti asked. "Why don't you wear more clothes?"

"Don't worry about it," Vivian said. "I'm sure you'll be back to normal as soon as you can."

"What's going on?" Shanti asked.

"I think they're talking about the monster," Vivian said.

* * *

"The dead alien died just like the man in the Copernicus," Franklin said. "Lucky the body wasn't caught in that explosion or wouldn't be able to confirm it."

"Amis said this thing walked through walls and killed pretty much on a whim," Garibaldi said. "Your daughter caught glimpses from that scarf but she can't say exactly what it looked like either, just a ball of lightning or something."

"Whatever it was scared Shanti a lot," Rally said.

"This just about proves that something is here and it is lethal," Sheridan said. "We can't assume it's dead because there are no remains, so we're going to act like its here. The League of Non-Aligned Worlds has hard about the situation and they're asking for a meeting to discuss things."

"I'll talk to Mariah to see if she can remember anything," Franklin said.

"Assuming she is who she says she is," Garibaldi noted.

"You think it's her?" the doctor said. "It couldn't have been, she had a complete rundown, no abnormalities."

"She was with the people that found Shanti, too," Rally noted. "And not the first. I talked to her and she feels scared and confused, not deceptive."

"So, how do we track it down?" Sheridan asked.

Rally uncomfortably looked over her shoulder and flexed the fingers of her left hand where it rested in the sling.

"We're not putting a fifteen year old girl on the track of a man-eating monster, no matter what she can do," Sheridan assured her. "Didn't Amis say he thought he could feel it?"

"He did," Garibaldi said. "I had something of the same idea."

"Get on it," Sheridan said. "I've got to talk to the League in the next few minutes. Miss Vincent, if you will?"

"Yeah," Rally said, expecting what was coming.

The walked to the side out of the way.

"She caused that explosion," Sheridan said. "That wave of white fire that some of the lurkers talked about. Didn't she?"

"Might be," Rally said reluctantly.

"Has anything like this ever happened before?" Sheridan asked.

"Are you talking about the scale?" Rally asked. "No, hell no. If it had, I probably wouldn't have even thought about taking her on to a space station for an extended stay."

"But this has happened on smaller scale then?" Sheridan said.

"She's burned people that threatened her," Rally said. "But nothing like this. Until now, anytime she's tried to cut metal has taken a lot of effort and a lot of time. I'm beginning to think she has an easier time if she's emotional."

"Like you said, something really scared her," Sheridan said grimly. "But we can't risk her being 'really scared' near the hull. And there's no one really who can teach her to control this kind of thing."

He paused and thought for a moment.

"Maybe the Vorlons..."

"No," Rally said sharply. "Just plain no."

* * *

The soldier of darkness found a dark space to regroup and consider it's situation and that little organic thing that had attacked it with mind fire.

Then it heard the voices of its masters, coming along with another of those tasty organic things standing between them.

"This one's a little out of his way," Morden said with a smile. "And this might be the answer to a little rumor I've heard recently."

* * *

"We want you to remove this woman from the station," the Markab ambassador said as he walked in front of the general seating of the ambassadors to address the five-party table of the security council.

"On what grounds?" Sheridan asked.

"She has brought something with her from that ship from the past," the Markab ambassador said.

"Oh, that's a good one," Londo said. "Always appreciate a good ghost story eh?"

"Let him speak, I'm interested in what he has to say," G'Kar commented in an aside.

"Of course you would be," Londo said with irritation.

"The forces of darkness do not move openly," the Markab ambassador said. "They work through others. A thousand years ago, when they were driven away, these forces went to ground in secret places and their servants did likewise. But now, they are coming again, moving again and the darkness is calling to its soldiers to gather."

"And you think this woman is one of these soldiers?" Sheridan asked.

"Sometimes evil can wear a pretty face, Captain," the Markab said.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Vivian asked, checking the weapon in her hand.

"Rally's only got one arm," Shanti said, checking her own weapons.

"And you're supposed to be resting," Vivian noted. "We've got PPGs, the shotgun some pistols. And I saw what people were using against thing and it was ignoring."

"So are we just going to sit around while this monster kills people?" Shanti asked.

"That's exactly what you're going to do," Rally said, coming into the room with almost no extra noise.

"Rally, it's..." Shanti started to say.

"When you're old enough," Rally said. "I won't be surprised if you get into this line of work. After all, that's what the skills are for, but right now you are children, under my care."

Rally leaned down and picked up the shotgun.

"Let's wait this out in security," she said. "If they need something from you, you'll be on hand."

"And it's the safest place in the station," Vivian noted.

"At least we'll be able to practice at the firing range," Shanti muttered.

* * *

Jack shook his head as another hallucination started to form.

He was starting to be able fight clear of those, clear enough to form more coherent thoughts and sometimes speak them. Of course those moments of coherence were still only occasional.

* * *

"Did he actually say something that made some sense?" Zack Allen asked casually.

"What was that?" Rally asked.

"Oh, Jack," the officer said with a tone of disgust. "Garibaldi's been recording his cell in case he says anything useful about why he shot Garibaldi in the back. Anyway, let me log you and your girls in for the shooting range."

"Any word on using slugthrowers?" Rally asked.

"Not yet," Zack said. "And I know it's been a while since you asked, but with everything..."

Vivian leaned over against the wall as she bent over to check her socks and froze as a tingle of something vicious worked its way through the wall into her.

"Vivi?" Shanti asked, drawing Rally's attention.

"Something wrong?" Rally asked cautiously.

"It went through this wall," Vivian said quietly.

* * *

"It was down here," Amis told Garibaldi. "Trust me, I felt it down here, hiding. But now it's gone somewhere else. I'm not crazy."

Garibaldi nodded and sat down quietly, holstering his weapon as he did.

"There was this guy in my first unit during the war," he said. "Kept telling us that our perimeter was weak. And we all laughed because we hadn't seen any action and every time we checked it, the perimeter was just fine. We checked it again and again and again. The perimeter was strong. And then the Minbari came, tore through that perimeter like it was paper, and he was one of the first to die. He was nuts, but he was right. So yeah, I do believe you."

"At least you're one person who believes me," Amis said. "I don't understand it, it doesn't feel like the thing is anywhere around here. I can feel it on the station, but it feels several sectors away."

"So it moved," Garibaldi said. "Maybe we should head toward that feeling."

Garibaldi's link beeped not three steps later.

"Garibaldi," he said.

"Chief!" Zack yelled into the link. "That thing is here!"

"What?" Garibaldi shouted just before Amis ran off ahead of him. "Damn it! I'm on the way!"

* * *

Ivanova caught Sheridan outside the council chambers.

"The creature's attacked security," she said.

"Damn it!" Sheridan said. "Get as many people there as you can. I want that thing put down before it can get out."

He glanced over his shoulder toward the various diplomats and then moved into the hallways at a rush.

Several people noted the action, but most dismissed it as Sheridan's typical impatience. But at least one of the ambassadors seemed fairly interested.

* * *

"There it is again!" Zack shouted.

The present security personnel in the lobby rose out of cover and started firing. Rally herself aimed and fired several times, trying to get a sense for her enemy's anatomy so that she could try place better shots.

Vivian and Shanti were both similar in trying to place shots, save a few differences. Shanti quickly lost her patience and just fired, thinking about trying to use her powers again, despite the fact that she hadn't really recovered from the last time yet. Vivian on the other hand, ended up waiting too long to find a good shot that she didn't take any.

"It doesn't do anything if you don't fire it, Little Girl," Rally said calmly. "Or if you shoot away all its power, Kitten."

Both girls winced slightly.

Quickly the thing retreated again.

"What the hell is going on?" Zack wondered. "This thing can walk through wall and it just keeps coming at us?"

As he spoke a dirty little man jumped in past the security officers under cover and started shouting out.

"Are you still here?" Amis demanded. "Well, I'm here too, and I'm ready to finish this."

"What the hell?" Rally wondered.

"That's the guy that I punched in the nose," Shanti offered.

"I recognized him," Rally said. "But what's he doing."

Sheridan, Ivanova and Garibaldi came in not long after with a small army of security officers drawn from patrols all over the station.

"What's the situation?" Garibaldi asked before reaching out and pulling Amis back into cover. "Get over here."

"It keeps coming and going," Zack said. "Killed a prisoner, and started attacking us."

"It goes invisible," Rally called out. "I don't think it's ever been complete visible actually. Can't tell if there are any real vulnerable points."

Rally glimpsed back at Shanti briefly, but didn't add anything.

"I don't think we're really hurting it at all," another officer said. "Just annoying it. Like a bee sting."

"Well, one bee-sting is an annoyance," Sheridan said. "A thousand can kill you. Next time it shows up, everybody fire away."

Rally nodded and glanced toward her kids to see if they were ready.

The various officers waited for the thing to show itself, but it stayed quiet.

"What's taking it so long?" Sheridan muttered.

"It can smell an ambush," Amis said. "You need to give it what it wants so it will come out."

"Stay down, Shanti," Rally whispered, pointing with her good arm out toward the general area where the creature had been appearing.

The lurker ran out of cover again and into the open shouting for the monster to come at him.

And it did, a huge crackling blue form of a thing reaching out to lift him up.

"Take it down!" Sheridan shouted as almost twenty men and women unleashed a hail of PPG fire on the creature which dropped the lurker.

The creature seemed to stagger backwards as if it was running away.

Up until the PPG bolts seemed to come together into a sheer white cage of burning fire which closed in on the monster before it vanished with a hideous cry.

Shanti leaned forward then panting as Garibaldi ran over toward where Amis had been dropped.

Rally glanced back at her daughter and frowned slightly before exchanging a pair of looks with Ivanova and Sheridan.

"Call medlab," Sheridan said with determination but calm.

* * *

"You wanted to talk to me?" Sheridan said.

"Yeah," Garibaldi said. "The prisoner that creature killed?"

"What about it?" Sheridan asked.

"It was Jack," the Chief said. "Now I know this is going to sound paranoid, but I don't believe in convenient coincidences."

"Susan says the Copernicus was reprogrammed to head on a specific path," Sheridan noted darkly. "This thing was more intelligent than just a beast."

"Rally has cheery news herself," Garibaldi said. "She's got word from her friends on Earth about something called 'Night Watch'. Now, there's nothing in that that I think is connected to this monster here, but still lots of weird stuff is going on."

Sheridan nodded and shook his head.

"Speaking of weird stuff," Garibaldi said. "Anything on the little firestarter?"

"Was back in the medlab after that fight," Sheridan said. "But we think we found a solution for getting her help controlling herself."

"Eh?" Garibaldi said. "The closest thing to what she is would be a telepath and last I heard, they're still avoiding dealing with telepaths."

"Human telepaths, yes," Sheridan said.

* * *

"I am here because Ambassador Delenn requested it," the Minbari in front of Rally said, staring down at the bounty hunter past her nose.

"You don't sound like you like her," Rally said.

"I find her judgment...questionable," the Minbari said. "More questionable by the moment. Not that yours is much better."

"Let me ask you a question," Rally said.

"What might that be?" the Minbari asked.

"Are you going to sabotage my girls?" the bounty hunter said. "Manipulate them, influence them, play in their minds?"

The Minbari man's expression was then filled with disgust.

"That would be a betrayal of a sacred gift," he said instantly. "Of course I would do no such thing."

Rally nodded and shrugged.

"And it doesn't matter what you think of me," Rally said as if that was explanation enough.

"You don't trust your own people?" the Minbari asked.

"In your history, ever have a situation where a bad leader brings everyone else to tragedy because they don't think to disobey?" Rally asked.

"On occasion," the Minbari said.

"That's Earth right now," the bounty hunter noted. "Curious, why not just check my head?"

"Because I do not know human minds well enough to risk entering the mind of one who is so controlled as to be silent," the Minbari said.


	6. A Spider in the Web

A handful of weapons were set out on the table in the dark room.

"We have a problem," a raspy voiced man said to the collected group.

There were several humans present as well as two narns, a drazi, three brakiri and a centauri.

Rally leaned forward and sorted through the weapons. Most of them were melee weapons: stun guns, drazi knives, a flexible fiberoptic baton, some others. These weren't the problem, nor were the occasional PPG.

No, the problem lay in a small pistol sized firearm with a massive single shot round.

A mini-grenade launcher.

"That's a planetary-use weapon," the Centauri said grimly.

"Right, this baby can fire a grenade strong enough to open a foot long hole in the hull if directed right," the raspy voiced man said.

"What fool would deal in those weapons?" one of the Narn asked.

"It gets worse than that," Rally said. "I found one of these things on a job not a little bit ago. In a trash heap."

"Someone is seeding the station with these weapons and eventually something is going to go boom," the second Narn said.

"What purpose would that serve?" the drazi asked. "Something like this will bring security down on the weapons trade like a black hole."

"Legal trade will try up like Minbari at a wetbar," one of the humans noted irritably. "Gray and black markets..."

"Will be prohibitively expensive to operate," the Centauri said. "Not to mention that this puts the lot of us in a station littered with dangerous weapons."

"The vulnerable parts of the station are placed quite apart from the living quarters," a Narn noted. "Really, these days, it's only tradition that keeps slugthrowers off most vessels."

"It's still an explosion in a tight, confined space," Rally said. "There's no real cover to be had. One grenade in a corridor and we'll have mass death...including the person who fires the grenade in most places."

She paused.

"I could take this to security," she said. "I'm legal, and I've got some good in-roads there."

"No good," the raspy-voiced man said. "They'll have to investigate us and my customers aren't going to like me turning over information."

"For whatever motivations," the Centauri said. "Everyone here has at least dipped in the black market, which will prove...embarrassing when security does what it has to do to find the lunatic behind these weapons."

"You know what your suggesting here?" Rally asked. "I doubt any of us here will get along too well. You all know I don't appreciate any weapons getting into just anybody's hands."

"I would note that we've kept a fairly tight rein on firearms in this station," the Narn noted. "We don't have a flood of well armed lurkers shooting the place up yet. I would advise, Miss Vincent, that we are much better than the alternative."

"Unfortunately," Rally said leaning back. "I'm guessing I'm the agent you're looking to use here? It'll look good for me if I get credits from a bunch of black arms types."

"I've heard rumors that some of your human rogue telepaths have been filtering through Brakiri space," the Brakiri merchant said. "I wonder what might happen if they stumble on one of my shipments."

"Or a Narn shipment for that matter," someone else said.

Rally tapped her fingers on the table in front of her.

"The underground is a bunch of pacifists and doctors," Rally said.

"And I know that's the company you prefer to keep," a human said. "But can you really say that the end of Psi-Corps is going to come peacefully?"

"What do you know about it?" Rally asked.

"You're a white knight, Vincent," the human said. "Always have been, a do-gooder with pretensions of being mercenary. I don't know whether your problem with Psi-Corps is personal or idealistic, and I don't care. I've heard your name whispered more than once a safe contact."

Rally grimaced at that, guessed it only took one set of loose lips to pass on that she might not know names a telepath could go to for help.

* * *

Garibaldi looked across at Rally as the bounty hunter walked up right on time for her normal meeting on Shanti's progress in her community service.

"Not right now, Rally," he said. "We've got a big problem to focus on."

"Is it related to the thing I told you about before?" Rally asked.

"The grenade launcher?" Garibaldi asked. "Please tell me that was a fluke."

"I've been unofficially asked to look into it," she told him.

"Great," Garibaldi said. "I'll alert medlab."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Rally noted irritably.

"I'm guessing that the parties asking you to look into this aren't interested in security looking into it," Garibaldi said.

"Good guess," Rally said.

Garibaldi frowned and nodded as he looked around.

"I'm guessing things will get messy if I have to go asking questions of these parties," Garibaldi said. "And that you're here at your normal time as a sort of underneath an under the table courtesy call."

He thought for a moment.

"Okay, we've got a Free Mars terrorist running around," Garibaldi said. "You have until that's wrapped up to handle this problem. If it's not done by then, I'm moving in."

"I'll have it by then," Rally promised. "And Shanti?"

"No complaints on my end," Garibaldi said. "You?"

"Other than from her?" Rally asked. "Not yet."

"Let's hope that stays that way too," the security chief said. "By the way, how long are you going to ask me to hold that gun of yours?"

"That gun has been in battle for almost three hundred years," Rally said. "I don't want it anywhere near Vivian if I can avoid it. If I need it, I'll tell you."

"In the meantime," Garibaldi noted. "I have one hell of a collector's piece."

"Just remember that it's on lease," Rally warned sharply.

"Don't worry, I like having two hands, eight fingers and two thumbs," Garibaldi noted with a smile and raising up his hands.

* * *

"Let's first start with what you know," the Minbari said casually, not expecting too much.

Rally Vincent's silence was intimidating to say the least, but she still wasn't a telepath and she was human besides.

"Know about what, Mr. Dhaliri?" Vivian asked.

"About the use of your gifts, of course," the Minbari said with an arched brow. "And you do not need to refer to me by this human title of 'Mister'."

"All right," Vivian said, uncertainly.

"I burn things," Shanti said simply, looking up from a mirror before looking back down and checking her make-up. "I don't think it gets much simpler than that."

Dhaliri reached over and took the mirror out of her hand and set it aside as Vivi rolled her eyes.

"And what about your sister," he asked, looking over towards Vivi.

"I can get visions off of objects," Vivian said, uncomfortably. "Gloves help, but if there's a lot then I still feel it. And the strong memories last a long time."

"What has your mother done up to now to help you deal with it?" the Minbari asked, nodding as he considered that neither gift was something he had heard about outside of perhaps the Vorlons.

"Well," Shanti said. "She made us practice a lot. So I know what it feels like and what happens when I do stuff. I get really thirsty and my head hurts a lot when I do that though, so I'd really rather just have a gun."

"Of course you would," Dhaliri said. "I imagine you have your own weapon already."

"No," Shanti said irritably. "Rally only lets us use firearms on the targeting range and sometimes she makes us clean them."

"So, you've only had practical trial and error practice?" the Minbari reasoned. That was a bit more than he'd expected really. "Anything at all like meditation."

"We learn awareness, focus," Vivian said, counting it off, "and visualization."

"Can you say a little bit more about that?" Dhaliri asked, idly curious.

"Well, first you have to know what's going on around you," Shanti said. "Then know what to focus on, and visualize what you want to happen."

"And focus without ignoring anything," Vivian said.

"Yeah, I always forget that part," Shanti said, shrugging. "Oh yeah, and dreaming."

"What is that?" Dhaliri said.

"Lucid dreaming," Vivian said. "Rally said we need to be able to recognize what a dream feels like and to control what happens during it."

"That's fun," Shanti said eagerly. "Rally says to give the dream what it wants but put what you want underneath it so it doesn't take you somewhere you don't want to go. But I just like to have fun and imagine great fight scenes or really pretty dresses or something. Burning stuff is a lot easier when I'm dreaming."

Dhaliri swallowed a bit nervously.

"How often do you practice this?" he wondered.

"Every night," Vivian said.

"The boring part is getting ready to go to sleep and just breathing for fifteen minutes," Shanti said. "Then we're asleep and the fun part is when the dreams start."

"Did she tell you why?" Dhaliri asked.

"Because a telepath or drugs can make you see things or feel things that aren't real," Vivian said. "And Rally said that dreaming is the closest thing to that feeling she can think of. So she makes us practice against our dreams."

"And your mother does this too?" Dhaliri asked.

"I don't think Rally even really sleeps much," Shanti said.

"She sleeps," Vivian said. "She just doesn't...turn off. Her alarm is a red light about this big."

She pinched her thumb and index finger together less than an inch.

"That wakes her up if she's facing it," the short-haired twin said.

The woman had been teaching her children defense techniques against telepathic intrusion. And if he had to guess from the description, how to undermine manipulation while making the invader feel that they had succeeded at whatever they were attempting.

That was rather intimidating. He'd run across one other silent person before, and that was the result of acute mental trauma, but the individual hadn't spent anytime afterwards developing the condition. Now that he thought about it, Vivian and Shanti were both quieter, though not silent, than most, though Shanti had brief spikes of mental volume. He had just considered it part of their gift.

Given Vivian's ability that might be the case with her, but he wondered if it was as much their mother's upbringing that had to do with it.

"Now, what I want," he said. "Is for you to use your abilities while I listen to see what is happening with your abilities."

* * *

Rally was starting to learn her way around Down Below given how often she had business down here recently. At the moment, she was poking around the area that she had found the first grenade launcher.

It had been in a pile of refuse probably scavenged from who knows where and nobody in the area seemed to know who had brought the debris to that area.

None of the arms merchants had heard of any new players in the black market, and none of them claimed to be behind this.

However, Rally wouldn't be surprised if she discovered that one of them had stumbled upon the launchers by accident and tried to get rid of them. Resulting in them scattered all over the place.

She grimaced visually at that. Such a hopeful guess wouldn't explain why the launchers were being found loaded with armed grenades.

At the moment, she was picking through the debris a second time, keeping in mind where it all would come from. But, as she picked through it a second time now, she was coming to the same conclusion that she knew she would.

The debris of this pile didn't match the debris of the pile where the other arms dealer had found the second launcher.

If a rogue, lost shipment of weapons had been found and were getting scattered about by accident, then she'd expect to find something in common between the debris other than just the weapons.

It made the chance they were being deliberately seeded just that much more dangerous.

Looking up and around, Rally couldn't see any other piles of debris in the immediate area. She glanced around toward one of the people looking toward her cautiously and walked over, pulling out a small credit chit with a casual attitude.

She maintained a number of small accounts with a set number of credits which had orders to close as soon as they were first emptied. It let her bribe or otherwise pay people that didn't have accents to transfer money to.

"Can someone tell me what these debris piles are here for?" she asked.

A mousy woman eyed the credit chit and then the debris pile.

"It's out of the way there," she said. "It's the stuff that gets put aside after someone builds a wall or takes one down."

Rally nodded and looked around again before turning back to the woman.

"Are there set places to put these things?" she asked.

"Th..there are a few big dumping places," the woman said, eyes on the chit.

"Show me," Rally said.

* * *

Rally hefted the small, pistol sized launcher in her hand and frowned as she considered it. This was the third debris pile she'd found since the lurker had led her to the first. And it was the third grenade launcher that she'd found.

"All right, has anybody seen someone strange around here?" she asked, looking to the lurkers staring at her.

"What's strange?" one of the lurkers asked. "Everybody that comes down here is kind of strange."

"I'm strange, your strange," Rally said flatly. "We're all strange. Thank you Cheshire. I mean doesn't belong here kind of strange. Too shiny to work for a living."

"There was a woman," someone said. "She came down here, had a case..."

"A woman," Rally said idly. "Let me try to describe her..."

"How can you do that?" the lurker asked.

"I can smell when a trail is being laid," Rally said idly. "I can probably guess in at most three tries."

It took two.

It made sense that whoever brought Jack back wouldn't have left yet. Not one of Goldie's and not this close to her.

Back in Chicago this would call for going to Becky and doing a search of names or faces on the station. But there was no way to contact Becky at the moment and even if there was, she was too far away to swiftly hack B5's records like that.

For her own part, her skills were in the form of the battle, the stalk and the hunt. All the physical aspects of the field.

She had an excellent amount of both deductive and inductive reasoning, but without all the information, reasoning still left holes.

"She's following Goldie's will still," Rally reasoned as she moved through the tunnels of Down Below. "So where would she be?"

The scrape of a sound to her side attracted Rally's attention and she dodged aside barely as the knife slashed down at her, slashing a harmless line across her neck that was only half an inch from being deadly.

The PPG was in her hand and aiming at the assailant in the same flash, but the trigger wasn't pulled as Rally's eye trailed down the woman's left arm to the grenade launcher there, loaded, primed and aimed right at their feet.

"Rally Vincent," the knife wielding woman said with a smile. "She wants to talk to you."

"Goldie is dead, Diane," Rally said, already calculating and planning. "If you think otherwise, it's the kerasine talking."

"Goldie is never dead once," Diane said with a chuckle before glancing off to the side with glassy eyes. "She found the presents just like you said. I have brought her to you!"

Rally briefly considered the direction that Diane was looking and immediately dismissed it as a delusion.

Still it was a delusion that she could use.

Rally fired out, shattering the grenade launcher's hammer in Diane's hand and at the same time half-melting a fair sized chunk of the surface of what proved to be a prosthetic hand.

"You replaced the hand, I see," Rally noted.

The woman snapped to awareness and slashed outward with her knife as she discarded the useless grenade launcher.

Rally stepped back away from the knife, trying to increase range between her and the brainwashed and expertly trained assassin. Diane was faster, but her insanity was not the asset against Rally that it would be against some.

The gunsmith sidestepped a slash as she aimed down at the lunatic's feet and used her free hand to shove Diane away further down the hall.

The woman rolled into the fall and came up to her feet, throwing her knife. Rally batted it aside and fired again, striking over Diane's shoulder and scoring across slender armored shoulder pads warn there to deal with PPG fire.

Such a slender protection was only worth one or two direct shots, but it got the knife wielding fanatic in close enough to draw another blade, a small fighting blade which Rally was familiar with. It had cut her at least once before in the hands of another deadly woman.

The small blade slammed into her side with force but not accuracy, missing anything vital and barely scratching Rally through the faux leather she normally wore on these sorts of jobs.

Rally felt a sudden coldness that came with a distance from reality and an urge to sweat. It didn't feel like kerasine, but drugs were certainly not far from her mind, especially as the crazed image of Diane leaning over her morphed smoothly into that of Goldie's image reaching out to caress her as she sat helpless and tied to a chair.

The hallucination may have continued as the chair burst apart around her into splinters that rained over Goldie's image and Rally's mind fashioned its rejection of the induced image in the form of her preferred CZ 75. The image Goldie stared at her arrogant, mocking and seemingly unaware until the the moment that Rally pulled the trigger in her mind.

And then reality came smashing in as she came to in time to feel the satisfying crunch as Diane's chest plate shattered under her free hand's punch. It was the problem with some of the cheaper concealable armors, they just didn't handle a physical blow very well.

"Ho...how! Mistress! Where are you!" Diane demanded pitifully as she tumbled back onto her rear and immediately was dodging aside as Rally advanced firing.

She turned her back, letting the remains of her armor take the first couple of blows before she snatched up her knife again and dodged around a corner.

Cursing and wishing for a good slug thrower to perform a ricochet with, Rally thought about dodging low and going for the shot around the corner, but the woman would be expecting the slide.

Instead, Rally grunted with effort as she jumped high and wide around the corner, staying well away from it and easily dodging the debris thrown her way as Diane rolled forward under the bounty hunter's shot and came to her feet with another knife in hand.

"You're too close to use a gun safely!" Diane shouted. "I'm disappointed. She's disappointed!"

Rally grimaced as she dodged aside again, back against the wall and reaching into her jacket for a moment as Diane turned about to face her again.

The lunatic found a small spray can of filling her vision just briefly before a fine mist sprayed out over her.

A laugh moved through her mind just before the mist reached her face, thinking it was something like commercial mace or such. Then the pain ripped through her as the mist covered her eyes and sent her screaming in crippled agony.

"Sorry about the bleach, but I want you alive," Rally said shortly before slamming her PPG into back of Diane's skull.

* * *

Rally sat on the bed and waited for the tests to come to see whatever might have been on that knife edge. She glanced across toward where Diane was shackled into her bed and was struggling about.

The gunsmith frowned sadly and shook her head.

"Poor girl," she muttered.

"She's hardly a girl," Dr. Franklin said. "And if you really felt sorry for her, you wouldn't have sprayed her in the eyes with a can of undiluted bleach."

"Ever get something in your eye, Doctor?" Rally asked idly. "I hated to do it, but she isn't someone you can save. It would be kinder to kill her, but I think we need to talk to her first."

"What are you talking about?" Franklin asked.

Rally shook her head and looked toward the woman again.

"Do you know about Goldie Musou?" Rally asked.

"She was the drug lord that developed kerasine 2," the Doctor said with a frown. "That's about all I need to know about her."

"Goldie had a thing for teenaged girls, especially innocent virginal types," Rally said. "She'd find a girl with a happy life and loving family and then kidnap them. Dose them with kerasine and work at them until she'd programmed them completely."

"That's hardly anything..."

"I'm not finished," Rally said quietly, interrupting Franklin. "Then she sends the girl back to the family...and the girl waits until her loved ones are all in place then she kills them all according to her programming. Mother, father, younger siblings, older siblings, boyfriends, best friends...everybody."

"Good god," Franklin said.

"After that, Goldie recollects them and waits for the kerasine to drop enough for the girl to realize what she's done," Rally whispered. "You see, she stays on the drugs, because then she can pretend that this is all a nightmare. She can deny that it was her hand who killed her own family. She's so determined to avoid that that she's stayed programmed ten years after Goldie Musou's death."

"And you think you can get something useful out of her?" Franklin asked.

Rally nodded quietly.

"The game is close to reality," Rally said. "She'll know something."

The doctor stared at the struggling woman along with Rally and felt a distinct shiver work over his spine.

"Your blood work is clean," he said, recovering himself. "Whatever was on that knife must be normally untraceable or else quickly processed."

Rally nodded.

"Thanks for that," she said. "Maybe it was just a wandering thought."

Not that she had those much anymore, but it was always possible.

"Whatever," Franklin said. "We'll tell Garibaldi when she's ready to be questioned. We're just getting started on her preliminaries here."

Rally smiled grimly at the thinly veiled dislike and the implication that she would be kept away from the patients before leaving the room.

* * *

"Targeting you specifically," Garibaldi said, shaking his head. "Goldie's famous sex pets wonderful."

"Sex...what?" Ivanova asked.

"Brainwashed teenaged girls she used as assassins and sex slaves," Garibaldi explained gingerly.

"Oh great, plural, how many more do we have to deal with?" the Russian commander asked.

"Two others, unless there are more than I know about," Rally said.

Sheridan nodded gruffly.

"We're going to question her soon as the Doc clears her," Garibaldi said. "Already logging her in, though had to remind one of my guys that her knives aren't for purchase or collecting."

"That's just the sort of added complication we don't need around here," he said irritably.

"Regretting the decision to back me?" the bounty hunter asked.

"Maybe just a little," Sheridan said. "But we all have our pasts and all of it was pretty colorful in ways. I don't doubt that we'll all be getting more than our fair share of attention coming soon."

"Just one thing," Garibaldi asked.

"What's that?" Rally asked as she stood up.

"Is this one of those girls?" Garibaldi asked.

Rally frowned as she looked over the photo. The woman in the picture was familiar, but she wasn't sure where she'd seen it before. However, she was way too young to be one of Goldie's girls. Maybe they were emulating their old mistress?

That was a disturbing thought.

"No, and what was she doing outside my store back when I caught Jack the second time?" Rally asked.

"What makes you say that was when this was taken?" Ivanova asked.

"Because he held back to tire his shoelaces," Rally said simply.

"Shoelaces?" Ivanova asked, glancing down at the laceless boots. "Really?"

"Hey, I was rushed," Garibaldi protested. "Anyway, we're not sure what she was doing there, we didn't get much of a look."

"Right," Rally said. "I've got to go and look to see if there are any more launchers around before someone finds them. How'd your terrorist hunt go?"

"Thanks for attending to this, Miss Vincent," Sheridan said. "It's good to know we can count on this protection going two ways. Though I assume you are getting paid."

"In a manner of speaking," Rally said.

* * *

"These are military grade arms," one of several people noted. "And armor, bullet and energy resistant. With this we can take the fight to Psi-Corp!"

"Not yet," someone else said as they looked through the crate and weapons. "We're untrained and there aren't enough of us."

Several people agreed.

"We have to prepare first," he said then. "But maybe soon we won't just be running."

* * *

Sheridan breathed heavily as he looked back over his shoulder at where Garibaldi had left.

The security chief had asked to be brought in to Sheridan's suspicions about Bureau 13 and Sheridan had obliged.

The day had been very hectic.

"At least none of those grenades went off," he muttered.

* * *

Diane stopped struggling as she heard a couple of doctors and nurses heading her way again, talking about scans and examinations.

She chuckled darkly for a moment.

"Hey Doctor, did you ever watch 21st century films?" she asked with a raspy, bleach damaged voice.

"What's that?" the voice asked.

"You see, my mistress taught me how to take the pain away and replace it with pretty lights," Diane said chuckling.

"What are you talking about?" he wondered before his eyes widened. "Damn it! Don't do..."

A nerve impulse sent through her prosthetic limb, triggering a motion of the mechanical fingers which further sent a new, wireless signal.

The explosion ripped out of her body from the implanted device, tearing her to pieces as the operating theater of medlab was torn into pieces with shrapnel flying in every which direction.

Stephen picked himself up from the floor as he looked about the mess of his medlab and listened to the coming cries of the wounded about him.

Looking around, he was sure that nobody seemed to be dead, which had to be some kind of miracle. But the operating room was trashed and even as he watched, something thunked down in front of him before rolling to a stop.

The still smiling head of the woman staring up at him.

* * *

Morden crossed his arms and considered the two women he saw sitting down across from him.

"No," he said idly toward his side. "They're insane, but they could be useful. First, we just have to know what they want."

He smiled then and rocked back lightly on his heels.

"And that's not the kind of thing to ask them up front," he decided with a trace of dark humor.

* * *

Okay, here's the complete Chapter 6, fairly short I know, but significant...I hope to have a good preview for Friday (and full episode on my site)

Also, remember, currently having an event run on my site at

thryth dot webs dot com


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